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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Josh Chait
310.285.0182
josh@chait.com
TYRANNOSAURUS SKULL SELLS FOR $276,000 IN NEW YORK CITY; MAMMOTH TUSK SELLS FOR RECORD $96,000
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Lot 314 for $276,000
I.M. Chait’s First Natural History Auction in New York City Grosses a Record Setting $1.6M
New York, NY. March 25, 2007—Not to be outdone by the hand of an Egyptian mummy that sold for $4,500, twice the low-end estimate, the tusk of a Woolly Mammoth found on the Siberian tundra sold for $96,000---the most a mammoth tusk has ever commanded at auction.
Lot 239 sold for $4,500
Lot 289 for $96,000
A prepped and mounted Tyrannosaurus skull sold for $276,000---another record. According to Jake Chait, the son of principal I.M. Chait, “The skull was sold to an anonymous collector.” Estimated to sell at $140,000-180,000, this was the second highest amount paid for a dinosaur specimen at auction.
The Director of Natural History for Chait, David Herskowitz enthused, “The market for natural history remains vibrant and our New York City debut far surpassed all our expectations. This is the highest-grossing collection of natural history sold at auction since such sales first began in 1995.”
It was Happy Feet for a 10-million year old fossil penguin found in the Atacama Desert in Chile which sold for $9,600; a multi-hued tourmaline crystal from Afghanistan sold for $32,000 and at the high-end of it’s $40,000-50,000 estimate, a fossil plate of a flying dinosaur skeleton quarried in Germany sold for $48,000.
Lot 305 sold for $9600
Lot 321 sold for $48,000
A small aesthetic iron meteorite recovered in Southwestern Africa that weighed just 11 pounds sold for $32,500. Said meteorite specialist, Darryl Pitt, “This was another banner day for extraterrestrial real estate.” And not only---a gold nugget from Western Australia weighing 62 troy ounces sold for $72,000.
Lot 202 sold for $32,500
Lot 71 sold for $72,0000
Approximately 75,000 years old and found in the La Brea Tar Pit Formation outside of Los Angeles was a Dire Wolf skull which sold at auction for $60,000.
Lot 287 sold for $60,000
Other lots sold in the 345 lot auction included amber, gems, tribal artifacts, fossilized plants, mammals, birds and fish and dozens of lots of dinosauria—including vertebrae, claws and eggs.
Here is just a small sample of some of the major media outlets that have already picked up the story:
New York Times
USA Today
Washington Post
Los Angeles Times
The New York Sun (Front Page!)
Newsday
New York Post
New York Daily News (2 articles)
CBS News
ABC News
FOX News
MSNBC
Forbes
Business Week
AOL.com (Home Page!)
MSN.com (Home Page!)
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