Additional Coverage:
- ‘Pawn Stars’ boss Rick Harrison pays $1,000 over the guest’s asking price for a dinosaur skull (marketrealist.com)
“Pawn Stars” Sees Prehistoric Prize: Dinosaur Skull Snagged for $9,000
Las Vegas’s Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, home of the History Channel’s “Pawn Stars,” has seen its share of unusual items, but a recent episode featured a truly prehistoric find: a fossilized dinosaur skull. The seller, hoping to land a combined $12,000 for the skull, a fossilized fish, and what he believed to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth, got a surprise when “Pawn Stars” boss Rick Harrison called in expert Andre to authenticate the items.
While the T-Rex tooth was quickly deemed a fake, the fish, identified as a Priscacara from the Eocene epoch, proved genuine. Although Harrison already had a collection of similar fossilized fish, the expert valued it at $500.
The star of the show, however, was the skull. Identified as belonging to a Dyrosaur, an ancient crocodile-like creature from the Eocene period (50-60 million years ago), the skull’s exceptional preservation impressed even the expert, who estimated its worth at a whopping $16,000.
With the authenticity and value confirmed, negotiations began. Despite the seller’s initial asking price of $8,000 for the skull, Harrison, impressed with the specimen, offered $9,000. After a brief back-and-forth, the deal was struck, adding another unique piece to the pawn shop’s ever-growing collection of historical artifacts.