The latest luxury asset class for billionaires: dinosaur bones, powered by Farrell’s new auction platform

The fossil, dubbed “Trey,” will be open for bidding from March 17 to 31 on Joopiter, an online auction platform founded by Grammy Award-winning artist and producer Pharrell Williams. It has a presale estimate of $4.5 million to $5.5 million.

Dating back more than 66 million years to the Late Cretaceous period, the tree was discovered near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1993 by Lee Campbell and the late Allen Grafham, a commercial paleontologist who made several important discoveries during his lifetime.

The 17-foot-tall (5.3 m) herbivore greeted visitors at the grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis in 1995, and remains there on loan until 2023.

It was recently sold in a private deal, and is now in Singapore, where it will be available for private viewing until the end of March, Jupiter said.

Paleontologist Andre Lujan, who worked with Jupiter to prepare the fossil for auction, said Tree “has this cultural aspect that a lot of fossils being auctioned these days don’t have.” “This is relatable to people and has undoubtedly inspired young children who have seen it to pursue a career in paleontology.”

Dinosaur fossils, once the domain of museums and universities, have become increasingly popular investments.

In 2024, remains “Summit” Stegosaurus “Stan” sold for $44.6 million at auction, breaking the previous record of $31.8 million paid in 2020 for “Stan.” Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

In a sign that the market for dinosaur fossils remains strong, a rare skeleton of a young dinosaur exceeded its $4 million to $6 million pre-auction estimate for Sotheby’s in July and ended up being sold. More than $30 million In a bidding frenzy, including fees and costs.

Caitlin Donovan, head of global sales at Jupiter, said the increased interest reflects a shift away from traditional categories such as vintage motherboards and toward things that have “cultural resonance.”

“(Dinosaurs) have always captured our imagination…people are now starting to see the value of investing in these assets,” Logan said.

But the hot market has some paleontologists concerned that important specimens may disappear from private collections, depriving scientists of important research opportunities. Public museums “are completely priced out in a market that is exploding,” said Christy Carey Rogers, a paleontologist at Macalester College in Minnesota.

“If a fossil goes into a private collection without guaranteed access in perpetuity, that data is essentially lost to science,” said Cary Rogers, who was not involved in the sale.

Logan emphasized that Trey has always been privately owned, and hopes it will end up in a museum, just like Apex, which is now on display in American Museum of Natural History in New York After its buyer signed a long-term loan agreement allowing scientists to study it.

“Because we have this paradigm shift in what owning dinosaurs means to society, people naturally gravitate toward these charitable situations where they loan them out long-term to museums or they end up donating them to a new museum that’s just being born,” Logan said.