T-Rex skeleton sold at auction for €5.6 million in Zurich

Trinity, a 67-million-year-old T-Rex skeleton, was sold on Tuesday, April 18 at auction in Switzerland for nearly 5.6 million euros. A nice marketing stunt for the auction house Koller, which organized the sale in Zurich. A mess, according to paleontologists. © FABRICE COFFRINI - AFP

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Trinity, a 67-million-year-old T-Rex skeleton, was sold on Tuesday, April 18 at auction in Switzerland for nearly 5.6 million euros. A nice marketing stunt for the auction house Koller, which organized the sale in Zurich. A mess, according to paleontologists.

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From our correspondent in Geneva, Jérémie Lanche

Almost four meters high. More than eleven meters long. This is called a beautiful baby. But Trinity is officially a T-Rex for only 50% of its skeleton, taken from three specimens found between 2008 and 2013 in formations in Montana and Wyoming, in the northwest of the United States, according to the sales catalog. The rest is a cast.

Enough to consider it an authentic dinosaur fossil. Trinity belonged to an American collector and was acquired by a European collector of dinosaurs and modern art, auctioneer Cyril Koller told AFP.

Popular with collectors

The price of Trinity nevertheless remains well below the record of Stan, another T-Rex left for some 32 million euros in 2020. Because dinosaurs attract wealthy collectors ready to break their piggy bank to treat themselves to a Jurassic Park scent.

We saw the American actors Leonardo di Caprio and Nicolas Cage tear off a T-Rex skull a few years ago, much to the chagrin of paleontologists who are worried about seeing their object of study be commodified. For them, a T-Rex has no place in a living room but in a museum.

► Read also: France: the skeleton of a dinosaur sold 2 million euros at the Eiffel Tower

(

And with AFP)

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  • Switzerland
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