Largest Triceratops "Big John" sold for $7.7M

[Troodon]

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58998367

 

[Troodon]

FYI

 

Came out at the Denver Show: Stan the T-rex that was sold last year for around $26M is going to Japan, was privately purchased and from what I hear will wind up in a museum. 

 

The paleontologist Denver Fowler made the following comment on sale of Big John in social media " Its a broken up Triceratops that was heavily reconstructed.  There's no evidence its is "the biggest", that's just a claim make by the sellers.  More junk sold to people with too much money.  But what do they mean by the term "biggest"? in terms of body mass ? Total body length? Shoulder height?

Someone asked him how much is real and he posted these images 

 

Remind everyone even the Trex Sue (85%) and Stan (65%) were not complete.  

 

[Dinoguy89]

Walter Stein who discovered Big John just posted this on social media, gives some context as to the process and how he offered this to institutions and academics, but points out that they didn't show any interest.

 

 

"As most of you have heard by now, the Triceratops skeleton known as "Big John", discovered by me in 2014, was auctioned off in Paris this morning and sold for the incredible sum of over 6.4 million dollars. It appears to have been purchased by a private collector in the USA, whose representative I think is the former VP of Animal Kingdom at Disney. It is our hope that it will turn up on display publicly and wind up in a museum someday, so that it can be properly researched, studied and enjoyed by everyone. Time will tell.

Congrats to the Italian team at Zoic Inc, who did a nice job finishing the prep, restoration and mounting. Big John is an amazing specimen and I hope the new owners love it as much as we did. 

I also hope that the skeleton is a beautiful memorial to one of our incredible land owners, John R., the original "Big John", the specimens namesake, who unfortunately passed away of Covid in the fall of 2020. John was one of the nicest and kindest men I've ever known. He was always there to help and would give you the shirt off his back to do so. He always had a smile and a meaningful story to tell. He was the epitome of "soft spoken", but always knew exactly what to say when he did. You will be missed. 

Also thanks to the many friends and field assistants who helped excavate and prepare Big John including Heather Stein, William and Stephen Stein, Diana Wright, David Howe, Ron Annick, Jason and Jacob Geisen, Dan Albro and especially Isaiah Reed. 

For those of you who have sent emails and texts of congrats, thank you very much for your support. No, we are not millionaires now, as we sold the skeleton back in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic and global crash. After consulting with the land owners, we decided to let it go, largely unprepared and in jackets. 
That said, we are going to be VERY reluctant to sell any skeletons unprepared from this point forward. I think we are now past the time when we need to build our own PRIVATE MUSEUM in Western South Dakota and create a not-for-profit 501c-3 org to continue our educational mission. I will be throwing all of my efforts into this project this spring. 

To the detractors and academics who are complaining about the sale of dinosaur skeletons again... with their manufactured angst.. I have the following official statement...

1) The land owners did not receive a single request for access by academics in the over 50 years that they owned the ranch (until we began finding specimens). I don't think any academics have "legally" ever been on the ranch. 

2) We held onto the specimen for 6 years. It was widely advertised, seen at shows, on social media, on our website. It was not a secret. Not a single academic ever made an inquiry or offer on the skeleton. We would have been happy to work with you and would have bent over backwards to get it into a good home in the USA. 

3) If we had not collected this skeleton, I am 100% sure that it would still be out there rotting away. 

4) Triceratops is not rare by any stretch of the imagination. There are well over 350 known associated skeletons and skulls of this genera. Many of the academics and fanboys seem to forget this point. Big John was "big" hence the name, but this does not make it any more important that any of the other Trikes currently sitting in basements of public institutions you are currently largely ignoring. 

5) It is very difficult to get a skeleton into a public institution when the academics at that institution do not return your phone calls or emails, scoff at any purchase, denounce any cooperation with independents like myself, or commercial collectors and in fact treat you like you are the moral equivalent of a . If you want access to private ranches and privately held specimens try something novel... don't be an assh?@!le

6) If you do not like the price at auction... know this: you could have easily purchased the specimen from me for a mere fraction of that price and had access to the site for research. Again, The land owners and myself would have loved this. 

7) I currently have two very nice Triceratops skeletons on the shelves and another two potentially in the ground (common genera). If you truly want one, and are not simply puffing up your vapid chests for effect, my phone number is on the website. We are happy to work with anyone who legitimately wants to help advance our understanding of this amazing ecosystem in a respectful and meaningful manner. 

Cheers...

 

"

[raptorman88]

Thanks for the above Dinoguy89! Fowler likes to call specimens like Big John "garbage" and not scientifically significant. I'm not a big fan of Big J going to auction or some of the ways the Italians did the restoration and marketing, but Big J is not garbage. We tried to get the specimen into museums, but when museums are not interested or plead poverty there is little anyone can do. Had they purchased from us they would have paid a tiny fraction of the auction price. So they have only themselves to blame. Instead of attacking one another we should all be working together to save as many fossils as we can. I would prefer that Big J had gone to a nice public museum, but I'd rather have in private hands than in the badlands wasting away to nothing. Here are some pics of the "garbage", Fowler finds so worthless that he likely would have not excavated...

2019 UPDATE FINAL COMBINED QUARRY MAP.pdf

[jpc]

you seem to have been involved, so out of curiosity, how was it measured to be able to claim "Biggest"?  Pardon any skepticality I may show, but I am of the school that anytime I hear superlatives claimed for a dinosaur, I always think...marketing.  This is true for commercial folks as well as museums.   

Edited November 17, 2021 by jpc

[hadrosauridae]

2 hours ago, raptorman88 said:

Thanks for the above Dinoguy89! Fowler likes to call specimens like Big John "garbage" and not scientifically significant. I'm not a big fan of Big J going to auction or some of the ways the Italians did the restoration and marketing, but Big J is not garbage. We tried to get the specimen into museums, but when museums are not interested or plead poverty there is little anyone can do. Had they purchased from us they would have paid a tiny fraction of the auction price. So they have only themselves to blame. Instead of attacking one another we should all be working together to save as many fossils as we can. I would prefer that Big J had gone to a nice public museum, but I'd rather have in private hands than in the badlands wasting away to nothing. Here are some pics of the "garbage", Fowler finds so worthless that he likely would have not excavated...

 

 

Whats up "raptorman"!  Glad to see you poking on the forum!

 

1 hour ago, jpc said:

you seem to have been involved, .....

 

He had a small part to play.

 

[raptorman88]

Hi JPC! I found the skeleton, so yes, pretty involved. Sold it to the Italians mostly unprepared, and they are the ones making the “biggest” claim.
 

It is certainly a very large Triceratops, thats why I named it “Big John”. I did not, however, name it the “Biggest John”. Lol. Best wishes. 

[Troodon]

To close the loop on this auction sale that drew the ire of many in the paleontological community, Big John is winding up at the Children's Glazer Museum in Tampa.  Interesting background story about a man and his dream. 

 

https://www.fox13news.com/news/man-buys-7-7-million-triceratops-skeleton-big-john-making-big-dreams-reality-in-tampa

 

[PaleoNoel]

That's awesome! Nice to see the big ol beast end up in a place where kids can see such a great fossil, ideally catching the unshakable dino-bug!