Bids Soar For Dinosaur Skeleton

The skeleton of a famous dinosaur nicknamed Stan, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, sold at a Christie’s auction for five times over the estimate — that’s $32 million! — to a private, anonymous buyer. The skeleton was the center of a family feud. The family made a living digging fossils and finding ancient remains. They dug up Stan, the T-Rex, 28 years ago. Their feud during the last few years resulted in splitting up the family business which included the dinosaur and a South Dakota museum with more than 100,000 fossils where the T-Rex resided. The dinosaur went to one brother and the rest to the other. At the time it was thought to be a fair split. But the dinosaur set a record price at four times its estimate and the museum is now without its star attraction. Professional museum experts, large donors and many citizen groups are complaining because this star attraction is now not only out of the public view, but the owner has not offered to show it. It may even be in another country.