An online auction platform called Joopiter has good news for dinosaur lovers. Buyers can bid on a 17-foot-long triceratops skeleton from March 17 to 31. The fossil is affectionately known as Trey.
Would the fossil add the perfect touch to a dinosaur-themed bedroom? The artifact comes at a hefty cost. Trey has a pre-auction estimate of $4.5 to $5.5 million.
The three-horned skeleton first greeted visitors at the 1995 grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. It remained on loan there until 2023.
Then Trey was sold in a private purchase. It landed in Singapore. Joopiter says the skeleton can be viewed privately there through the end of March.
It’s not common for a dinosaur that was previously a museum exhibit to go to auction. Andre LuJan is a paleontologist. He worked with Joopiter to prepare the fossil for sale.
He says Trey “undoubtedly has inspired young children who’ve seen it to pursue a career in paleontology.”
Dinosaur fossils used to be the domain of museums and universities. But some buyers have bought the relics as investments in recent years.
The remains of Apex the stegosaurus went for $44.6 million at auction in 2024. That shattered the previous record of $31.8 million in 2020 for Stan, a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.
A rare young Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton blew past its $4 to $6 million Sotheby’s pre-auction estimate last July. It fetched more than $30 million in a bidding frenzy.
Some paleontologists are concerned. They fear important specimens could disappear into private collections. That would deprive scientists of research access.
Kristi Curry Rogers is a paleontologist in Minnesota. She says public museums are “getting totally priced out of an exploding market.”
LuJan is more optimistic. He notes that Trey has always been privately owned. He hopes the fossil will end up in a museum like Apex did. The stegosaurus is now on display at a museum in New York. Its buyer signed a long-term loan agreement. The agreement allows scientists to study it.
“People are naturally gravitating toward these benevolent situations,” LuJan says.
It is a joy to share wonder over what God has made.
Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? — Exodus 15:11
