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Wyoming’s Beloved Triceratops, “Trey,” Heads to Auction Amidst Soaring Dinosaur Market
A triceratops skeleton that once graced the halls of a Wyoming museum for decades is now set to go under the hammer, marking a rare occasion for a museum-exhibited dinosaur in a market that has seen prehistoric giants fetch record-breaking prices.
The fossil, affectionately known as “Trey,” will be available for bidding from March 17 to 31 on Joopiter, the online auction platform founded by Grammy-winning artist and producer Pharrell Williams. Experts estimate Trey could fetch between $4.5 million and $5.5 million.
Dating back over 66 million years to the late Cretaceous period, Trey was unearthed near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1993 by Lee Campbell and the late Allen Graffham, a commercial paleontologist with a history of significant discoveries.
This 17-foot-long herbivore was a centerpiece at the 1995 grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, where it remained on loan until 2023.
Following a recent private sale, Trey is currently in Singapore, where it is available for private viewings throughout March, as confirmed by Joopiter.
Paleontologist Andre LuJan, who collaborated with Joopiter to prepare the fossil for auction, highlighted Trey’s unique cultural significance. “This one is connected to people and undoubtedly has inspired young children who’ve seen it to pursue a career in paleontology,” LuJan stated, noting that many fossils at auction lack such a public history.
Once primarily the domain of museums and academic institutions, dinosaur fossils have become increasingly attractive as investments. In 2024, “Apex” the stegosaurus commanded an astonishing $44.6 million at auction, shattering the previous record of $31.8 million paid in 2020 for “Stan,” a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. The robust market was further demonstrated in July when a rare young dinosaur skeleton exceeded its $4 million to $6 million Sotheby’s pre-auction estimate, ultimately selling for over $30 million including fees.
Caitlin Donovan, Joopiter’s global head of sales, attributes this surge in interest to a shift away from traditional art categories like old master paintings towards objects with “cultural resonance.” LuJan added, “Dinosaurs have always captivated our imagination… and people are now starting to see the value in investing in these as assets.”
However, the heated market has raised concerns among some paleontologists who fear that important specimens could disappear into private collections, thereby limiting scientific research opportunities. Kristi Curry Rogers, a paleontologist at Macalester College in Minnesota, remarked that public museums are “getting totally priced out of an exploding market.”
Curry Rogers, who is not involved in the sale, emphasized the potential loss to science: “If a fossil goes into a private collection without guaranteed access forever, that data is essentially lost to science.”
LuJan, however, underscored that Trey has always been privately owned and expressed hope that it will ultimately find a home in a museum, much like Apex, which is now on display at New York’s American Museum of Natural History following a long-term loan agreement that allows for scientific study.
“Because we’ve had this paradigm shift in what owning dinosaurs means to society, people are naturally gravitating toward these benevolent situations where they loan them long-term to museums or they end up donating them to a new museum that’s just being born,” LuJan concluded.