Salomon Aaron

As I said, the rules have been developing and different dealers will kind of require different amounts of due diligence.

But obviously, the more certainty you have that you know exactly where and when and by whom and with what permissions a dinosaur fossil is discovered, the more confidence you have as a buyer.

So for example, we will insist on GPS coordinates.

We'll need to see land deeds showing that whoever owns it proves their legal title, GPS coordinates as it's discovered.

We'll need to have copies of the sale arrangements between the dinosaur hunter and the landowner.

We'll need to see, ideally when it's an important dinosaur fossil, I like to see videos kind of as the piece in situ, you know, in real time is being discovered.

So I know that bones aren't being added.

You know, we'll want to have kind of

Cooperating statements from everyone on the site explaining what's been found.

We'll want to send experts to the location or visit ourselves to kind of verify everything as it's being excavated.

So all of that is kind of helps to build a picture.

where you have complete certainty over when, where, how, and in whose property the fossil was discovered.

If you kind of rewind 15, 20 years ago, dinosaur fossils may have been exchanging hands where you might just have a signed statement from someone saying, I found this on my property at 15 Oak Hill Road or whatever.

But as the numbers have increased and also kind of just

A bit of background, we're an ancient art or antiquities gallery and we deal in Islamic art and we entered the dinosaur fossil market effectively trying to use the due diligence rules in those categories and apply them to the dinosaur fossil market.

So my original background is in my kind of my family's background are antiquities dealers, where we, when we buy an artwork or a Roman marble, we need to be clear about its provenance, you know, where, how did it enter the market?

What proof is that it legally left its country of origin?

And unless we're able to show that conclusively with proof, then a buyer or a museum doesn't really have the ultimate security that the piece is legally on the market.

So we developed our own internal ways of kind of really a kind of checklist for a specimen to make us feel comfortable that it's legal and it's on the sale on the market legally with no kind of issues relating to its title.

Does that kind of build a picture of what you need?