Dinosaur Market Anything But Extinct

‘Gus the T-Rex’ is likely to become the world’s most expensive dinosaur when he goes up for auction on 14 July (online bidding starts today).

The 67 million years-old dinosaur fossil is the star lot of Sotheby’s “Geek Week” auction in New York - and the latest example of a growing trend for wealthy people buying prehistoric artifacts to display in their homes. 

It’s a trend that started with ‘Sue’, another Tyrannosaurus rex, which Sotheby’s sold in 1997 for $8.3 million.

Since then prices have soared. Last year, a 150-million-year-old juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton fossil sold for $30.5 million. The ruling family of Abu Dhabi bought Stan, one of the most complete T-Rex skeletons ever found, for a then record-breaking $31.8 million in 2020. 

That record was broken in 2024 when ‘Apex’, a 27ft-long stegosaurus, was bought by billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for $44.6 million. 

Griffin’s favourite childhood toy was a stuffed dinosaur, and memories of that were what led him to bid for Apex.

“I’ve always loved dinosaurs,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “I’ve always been fascinated by this moment in the history of our planet. To make sure that Apex, which was one of the greatest fossils ever found, stayed here in America to inspire generations of children about science was just an opportunity I could not pass up.”

Many in the industry quietly expect Gus - which has an auction estimate of $20-30 million - to beat Apex’s record as T-Rexes are by far the most popular species of dinosaur.

“Gus has definitely caught people’s attention,” Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s SVP, Vice Chairman, Worldwide Head Science & Natural History, told us while deftly avoiding direct questions of whether she expects Gus to set a world record price. 

Notably, while Gus’s estimate is below the sale price of Apex, it is the highest auction estimate ever placed on a dinosaur fossil.

“The dinosaur market is much broader than people think,” Hatton says. “And last year’s record number of new registrants for our Natural History sales really showed how engaged this audience is.”

Gus is an extraordinary specimen, ranking amongst the largest and most complete ever found. “The level of preservation is exceptional, and thanks to years of meticulous excavation and lab preparation carried out to the highest professional standards, the specimen is superbly documented and mounted beautifully,” Hatton says. “It’s truly a once in a generation find.”

Gus was found by fossil hunter Thomas Heitkamp who discovered it on a ranch in South Dakota that was owned by a recently departed cattle rancher Gary “Gus” Licking.

“This specimen took three years to excavate, with the team sometimes working four weeks straight without finding a thing,” Heitkamp says. “It really does feel like tackling the world’s hardest puzzle, except we have to find all the pieces first. All those bones separated for 67 million years that we can now, almost magically, fit back together. There’s something deeply satisfying about that.”

Gus’s skeleton is approximately 63% complete by bone count and 75-80% complete when it comes to the total mass of the skeleton. That is far more complete than most dinosaur skeletons - even those in museums.

Hatton says both avid fossil collectors and new buyers have expressed serious interest about buying Gus. “Some of the potential buyers do already own other fossils,” she says. “But we’re also seeing new buyers who’ve been waiting for something of this calibre.”

Some of the bidders are likely to be well-known in their own right. Nicolas Cage, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio have also all bought parts of dinosaurs, with Cage and DiCaprio going up against each other at auction in 2007 for a skull of a Tyrannosaurus bataar (a close relative of the T-Rex). 

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