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How to Fund It: Why fossils are the new ultra-luxury trophy

How to Fund It covers how high-net worth individuals finance the purchases that matter to them.

10 November 2026

As the fine wine and luxury watch markets cool, rich collectors are paying record sums for animals that died tens of millions of years ago.

The sale of Sue, a T-Rex, for $8.36 million at Sotheby’s in 1997 was widely seen as a watershed moment for the dinosaur fossil market.[1] In 2020 Stan, another T-Rex, sold at a Christie’s for $31.8 million to an anonymous buyer later revealed to be the Abu Dhabi authorities.[2]

Prices have since climbed further. In 2024, Citadel founder Ken Griffin paid $44.6 million for Apex, a stegosaurus, after a bidding war between seven parties.[3] This July, a T-Rex called Gus sold for $50.1 million to an anonymous phone bidder, far above its $20-30 million estimate.[4] And in October, Jodi, a Nanotyrannus long thought by some to be a young T-rex, fetched $47.3 million, more than five times what was forecast.[5]

The appeal? Scarcity. Fewer than 100 individual T-Rexes have ever been found, and only about 30 of them are anything close to complete skeletons.[6] Such specimens are now priced much as a famous artist’s painting would be, depending on how well they're preserved, any pre-existing damage and, above all, completeness. Apex retains 254 of the roughly 319 bones it would have had in life.[7]

The wealthy have always collected antiquity. Renaissance patrons filled their rooms with marvels, in what were called “cabinets of curiosities”, and for the past century the trophy of choice has been fine art. 

Compared to a painting from a grand master, however, a fossil is not an easy asset to finance. With only a handful of seven- or eight-figure sales on record, lenders have few comparable prices to work from, and the market is largely unregulated. A bank that will lend against a Monet may balk at a stegosaurus. An alternative source of funding with no restrictions on use of proceeds may be a more attractive option. 

The symbolism behind majestic skeletons

Few things are as hard to replicate as owning a piece of deep history, and for some buyers the purchase is also a statement. After buying Apex, Griffin declared that it would stay in America. He lent it to the American Museum of Natural History and is funding a new research initiative and a postdoctoral fellowship. Sue and Stan also went to museums, though Gus’s whereabouts are unknown.

That matters as spending by the ultra-rich comes under scrutiny. A new breed of tech billionnaires is mindful that public displays of wealth – like private jets, luxury homes or seats on space shuttles – can spark debate and affect their public image. Private fossil buying has led to backlash from paleontologists, too.[8] However, specimens are usually swiftly lent to museums, where they draw crowds and inspire children.  That gives owners a public-relations dividend that other collectibles rarely deliver.

Fossils and skeletons can spark custody battles. Mongolia has treated dinosaur fossils as state property for decades. When a Tarbosaurus bataar skeleton sold at a New York auction for just over $1 million, it was later repatriated after a custody fight.[9] Actor Nicolas Cage, who outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for a separate Tarbosaurus skull in 2007, gave it up in 2015 after US prosecutors found it had been illegally removed from Mongolia.[10]

For a buyer, these cases are a warning about provenance. But a collector who funds a source country’s museum or its research institutions, or helps bring a specimen home, can earn respect and influence that a trophy in a private hall cannot.

The market is still nascent and potentially undervalued relative to fine art, and fossils may be tax-advantaged in some jurisdictions. Astute billionaires may be buying into a new asset class before prices climb.

For the collector eyeing the next Gus or Apex, however, finding a new intact skeleton, may be the bigger challenge.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/05/nyregion/tyrannosaur-skeleton-is-sold-to-a-museum-for-8.36-million.html

[2] https://news.artnet.com/art-world/stan-t-rex-goes-to-abu-dhabi-museum-2089251

[3] https://galeriemagazine.com/ken-griffin-buys-stegosaurus-auction/

[4] https://fortune.com/2026/07/15/t-rex-gus-50-million-fossil-market-shift/

[5] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmx28de233r2o

[6] https://www.businessinsider.com/over-a-billion-t-rexes-lived-on-earth-where-are-the-bones-2023-5

[7] https://camd.org.au/stegosaurus-skeleton-record-45m-at-sothebys/

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/14/t-rex-skeleton-sothebys-auction-new-york-scientists

[9] https://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/06/us/dinosaur-mongolia

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/22/nicolas-cage-returns-stolen-mongolian-dinosaur-skull-he-bought-at-gallery

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