The Economics of Everyday Things

6. T. rex Skeletons

January 19, 2026

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  • Fossils found on public land in the US are protected and must enter the public trust for science and education, whereas fossils found on private land are subject to open market sales. 
  • The commercial fossil market, driven by high-value sales like Stan the T. rex skeleton fetching nearly $32 million, has led to commercial hunters collecting T. Rex fossils at a much faster rate than scientific institutions. 
  • The high cost and commercialization of dinosaur fossils create an existential threat to scientific research, as paleontologists adhering to ethical codes are often restricted from studying specimens sold privately, despite commercial hunters finding over 60% of known T. rex fossils. 

Segments

Christie’s T. rex Auction
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(00:00:49)
  • Key Takeaway: Stan, a T. rex skeleton, sold at Christie’s auction for nearly $32 million, vastly exceeding its minimum estimate.
  • Summary: In October 2020, a T. rex skeleton named Stan was auctioned at Christie’s, fetching just under $32 million with fees. This price was more than five times its minimum estimated sale price. The sale validated the significant effort involved in collecting such fossils, estimated at 25,000 person hours for Stan.
Fossil Discovery Locations
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  • Key Takeaway: The Hell Creek Formation across Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas is the primary source for T. rex discoveries dating to the Cretaceous Age.
  • Summary: The Hell Creek Formation is the best location to find T. rex skeletons, dating back 66 million years. Nearly all 140 documented T. rex finds originated there. Fossils found on public land are protected by law, requiring permits from the Bureau of Land Management and often credentialed scientists for collection.
Public vs. Private Land Rules
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(00:03:39)
  • Key Takeaway: Fossils collected from public land must enter a public trust and cannot be sold, unlike fossils found on private land which are a ‘free-for-all’ market.
  • Summary: Scientific collection on public land prohibits any contact with the market, requiring annual field reports detailing all finds for the public trust. Conversely, landowners who find dinosaurs on private property have the right to sell the fossils on the open market.
Fossil Hunting Economics
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(00:04:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Private fossil hunters negotiate land access by offering ranch owners a percentage of the future sale, ranging from 10% to 50% for a high-value T. rex skeleton.
  • Summary: Fossil hunters like Peter Larson must secure permission to search private land, which involves cutting the landowner in on future discoveries. The excavation process, from scouting to delivery, can take two to three years and cost over a million dollars for a large T. rex. A successful excavation typically nets the hunter a profit of around 20% of the final sale price.
Factors Affecting Fossil Value
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(00:06:53)
  • Key Takeaway: A T. rex skeleton’s market value is determined by its size, condition, and most critically, its completeness, with no fully intact specimen ever found.
  • Summary: The market price of a fossil depends on several factors, with completeness being the most important. A T. rex skeleton has about 380 bones, but no complete specimen has ever been recovered. Larson’s team found Sioux, the most complete skeleton to date, at 90% by bone volume.
The Sioux Precedent
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(00:07:34)
  • Key Takeaway: The $8.4 million sale of the highly complete Sioux skeleton to the Field Museum in 1992 established a new, high-value benchmark for the dinosaur fossil market.
  • Summary: Sioux, found on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, became the subject of a legal battle before the landowner was awarded full ownership and took it to auction. The sale, financed partly by McDonald’s and Disney, reached $8.4 million, signaling the potential for massive profits and attracting ‘dinosaur dreamers’ to the business.
Amateur Excavation and Sales Difficulty
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(00:09:57)
  • Key Takeaway: Extracting massive fossils often requires rudimentary rancher ingenuity, and even rare, high-quality fossils can take nearly two decades to sell.
  • Summary: Clayton Phipps used a tractor trailer to drag his entangled T. rex and Triceratops find out of the ground due to a lack of established procedures. Despite finding a rare fossil, Phipps spent nearly two decades trying to secure a buyer before selling it to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for $6 million in 2020.
Intellectual Property and Casts
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(00:14:02)
  • Key Takeaway: Disputes over ownership can result in one party retaining the physical fossil while the other retains valuable intellectual property rights, leading to a profitable secondary market for casts.
  • Summary: Peter Larson did not profit from Stan’s $31.8 million sale due to a settlement where his brother received the bones while Larson retained the intellectual property rights, including copyright and trademark. Larson’s company now generates steady income by selling highly accurate plastic casts of Stan for $120,000 each to museums and private collectors.
Private Collectors Funding Science
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(00:16:55)
  • Key Takeaway: Wealthy private collectors, such as former Microsoft CTO Nathan Mirvold, fund scientific expeditions, leading to significant T. rex discoveries on public land that scientists otherwise could not afford.
  • Summary: Nathan Mirvold, who collects fossils and writes peer-reviewed papers, grants around $500,000 annually to under-resourced paleontologists. These grants have resulted in at least 10 T. rex discoveries on public land for academic research, helping to offset the budget disparity with commercial hunters.
Commercial Impact on Science
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(00:18:13)
  • Key Takeaway: The commercial market’s acquisition of over 60% of known T. rex fossils poses an existential threat to science by removing critical specimens from the public trust for study.
  • Summary: Paleontologists adhere to an ethics code restricting them to studying fossils in the public trust, making commercially sold specimens off-limits. Commercial hunters have collected more T. rex fossils in 33 years than public trusts collected in 130 years. This auctioning of natural heritage limits the sample size necessary for understanding ancient organisms.