Sotheby’s Big T. Rex Auction Raises Concerns Over Hype and Wealth Outpace Science

Forget sales about a hundred. Sotheby’s auction house is preparing to sell this season. On July 14 it will open live businesses on different brands buried in the groundbut the piece de resistance is lot 20, a rare 67 million year old Tyrannosaurus Rex mask.

The model, named Gus, is said to be one of the largest, most loaded T. rexes attended. Gus is expected to fetch $30 million and will go to the highest bidder, whether it be a public museum or a private collector. The latter took a large part in the purchase of antiques, and auction houses, according to paleontologistswhich helps to achieve this by creating hype. But when private collectors come in and buy buried under the trade as a precious commodity, that history has effectively been lost to science.

By almost all accounts, Gus is a big deal. In its description, Sotheby’s boasts that the specimen, which was found on a farm in South Dakota, contains “an astonishing 183 bones” resulting in “approximately 61% bone count.” The remains have been placed in a metal case with similar equipment to the missing bones. The result is a reconstructed skeleton that looks like it’s being chased by fire, its mouth full of knife-like teeth ready to tear meat apart.

Thomas Holtz, a tyrannosaur expert at the University of Maryland, said: “It appears to be a very impressive specimen. The completeness of the bones and the superior bone structure make Gus “scientifically important,” he says.

Gus is the latest dinosaur artifact to hit the market in the US. This began in earnest in 1997 when Sotheby’s sold Sue, very fit T. rex on history. That example sold for about $8.4 million—the most money ever paid for an antique on the market at the time.

Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman and head of the science and history department at Sotheby’s said: “Before Sue was sold, there were no laws about who owned fossils. In many other countries the government owns fossils. But the lawsuits surrounding Sue also explained that in the US, whoever owns the land also owns any fossils that are there, Hatton says. The market has been growing ever since.

But when Sue visited a scientific institution—Field Museum in Chicago—in recent years wealthy individuals have been taking dinosaur artifacts from private auctions, causing archaeologists to worry about the fate of rare specimens. Technology entrepreneur Dan O’Dowd has a T. rex called Samson. And he is not the only private collector to have a cruel king lizard. A study published in 2025 found that there are many remains of T. rex in private contributions than in public savings.

It’s not just that T. rex that is ending up in personal archives. In 2024, Sotheby’s sold a Stegosaurus He was named Apex to close the billionaire Ken Griffin’s portfolio of $44.6 million. And last year the auction house sold the only known child Ceratosaurus in the world to an unknown buyer for $30.5 million. These examples show another characteristic: As prices rise, museums cannot compete with each other in sales.

Courtesy of Matthew Sherman/Sotheby’s