Salomon Aaron

The record for a dinosaur at auction prior to that was $8 million in the early 2000s, which was Sue, which was acquired by a consortium of companies and is now on permanent display in Chicago.

And probably after Sue, there was very few things that actually made $8 million up until Stan.

And after Stan, the prices exploded and Christie's and Sotheby's started recurringly consigning major dinosaur fossils for sale.

And actually there was no logic to why they were so cheap prior to that sale.

You know, a lot of it was to do with the lack of visibility that people didn't know you could acquire dinosaur fossils.

And what happened with our gallery specifically was we were the first commercial art gallery to actually start exhibiting dinosaur fossils as an art form at an art fair.

So we acquired our dinosaur fossils, we applied art market due diligence to the acquisition, art market kind of condition reporting to the condition and the preservation, created bespoke art market minimalist stands for the pieces, and then showed them at art fairs.

And a lot of people would come up to us and say, I did not know you could buy a T-Rex.

I did not know you could buy a Triceratops skull.

And what the auction houses did was pump these items into the news and into auctions.

And then a whole generation of tech bros and private collectors descended on the market with advisors and that contributed to the explosion in prices.

To give you an example, specifically, you know, there was a complete triceratops skeleton that sold around 2022, 2023.

Don't quote me on the exact date, but Big John in Paris, which made kind of circa $8 million.

The prior record for a triceratops skeleton was, I mean, I don't,

know of any that made more than a million at public auction.

I know that Christie's had one that went unsold for half a million dollars 10 plus years earlier.

So the price jumps have been extraordinary.

And there are many other examples like that where since Stan, we've had Hector, we had a Raptor that made kind of 12, 13 million pounds.

We've had the Apex, which was bought by Ken Griffin, made 45 million.

We had the last Sotheby's specimen made 37 million.