Hasta La Ideas

Let’s no kid ourselves. We know why you continue to read UnBeige: to get the latest word on dinosaur sales. You were giddy when we told you about Vanderbilt Museum contemplating the sale of its prized Jurassic Park fiberglass dinosaurs. And you just should have seen the look on your face when we reported back in March on the I.M. Chait Gallery‘s massive dinosaur skeleton auction to help raise money for the Western Paleontological Laboratories. So it is with great pleasure that we tell you “Samson,” the full Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and cousin to the Field Museum‘s “Sue,” will be hitting the auction block on October 3rd at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. The auction is being handled by the firm Bonhams & Butterfields and is expected to fetch somewhere around $6 million by either a natural history museum or a billionaire mad scientist (perhaps for his Billionaire Mad Scientist Natural History Museum, which is a must-visit the next time you’ve visiting his underground lair). Here’s a bit:

“Most of the major museums in the world have casts of T. rexes,” as opposed to the real thing, [Bonhams & Butterfields’ Tom Lindgren] said. “Bidding on this T. rex is not going to be a gamble, it’s going to be the opportunity of a lifetime to whoever gets it.”

The female dinosaur’s lower jaw was found by the son of a rancher in 1987 and the rest of its bones were excavated in 1992, Lindgren said. It was sold twice to private owners, and is now owned by an American whom Lindgren wouldn’t name.

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