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HARD SHELLS TO CRACK: NO DINOSAUR ITEM TOO OLD TO SELL |
Rare nest of dinosaur eggs sold for $32,200. Photo courtesy of Phillips
What would you pay to own a piece of the prehistoric age? Sounds expensive, right? Maybe not.
David Herskowitz has sold everything from a dinosaur tooth to a complete dinosaur in his position as curator of natural history at Phillips auction house in New York.
Much of the recent fascination with collecting fossils has come, he said, as a result of “Jurassic Park.” The movie ignited a whole new area of collecting for the “middle-class buyer.”
Phillips’ June 21, 1997, sale featured a virtually complete Psittacosaurus dinosaur skeleton. The bone structure was exposed on a matrix slab and measured 35¼-by-20 inches.
This small, parrot-beaked, herbivorous creature roamed the Liaoning Province in the Peoples Republic of China millions of years ago. Many consider the region one of the most important fossil localities in the world. The lot sold for $14,950.
“You can spend $12 million on a Jasper Johns painting,” said Herskowitz. “And the guy is still alive to make more. Or, you can spend $14,950 for a piece of nature’s art, like a dinosaur skeleton, that’s 70-million-years-old. Where are you going to find another?”
Collectors today mostly buy fossils for aesthetic reasons, to decorate their homes. “Isn’t this cool?” is the response Herskowitz hears most.
When you think about it, artists have attempted to capture nature in clay and on canvas since the beginning of time. Why not go directly to the source as an art form?
That’s what collectors are doing. Not just museums anymore. “People love monsters,” said Herskowitz. “And a dinosaur is a monster that was actually real.”
The majority of buyers at the auction were first-time buyers. A well-preserved, 6-inch dinosaur egg, possibly Hadrosaur, sold for $805; Tyrannosaurus-rex tooth, $1,035. A collection of Theropod dinosaur claws, $575. The sale totaled $400,000 and 80 percent of the 430 lots sold.
Maybe a fossil in the family room is not such a monstrous idea?
There is one rule Herskowitz always follows in his auctions. Science always takes precedence. That is, nothing new to the area of study gets offered for sale. “Consignors think the same way,” he added. “This is a field you cannot survive in unless you get along with the academic community. They tolerate us.”
Commercial paleontologists consigned many of the fossils in the auction. Herskowitz added that most of the major finds in the last 10-years came from amateur fossil hunters.
Museums simply don’t have money to do field work. Fossils are donated to them, or museums trade to get what they want.
So, how do you know if those fossilized eggs in the attic trunk are worth a closer look? You want to remember, provenance is everything. Just having the eggs is not enough. You have to know precisely where they came from. Even the level at which they were unearthed is important. Without documentation, you’ve got a problem.
The best thing about the field is the people in it, said Herskowitz. “You’ll never meet more down-to-earth collectors and consignors.”
Q. I’m interested in information about button collecting. Thought perhaps you might be able to help.
A. People have been collecting buttons ever since buttons first appeared on clothing. Button-like objects were found in ancient burial sites.
The genre grew during the 1860s when young women began making charm strings from buttons given to them by friends, relatives and suitors.
In the 19th century, Senator John H. Tingue of New York had a button named after him for challenging three ladies to make a charm string consisting of 2,500 buttons in 30-days. An award awaited the winner. The women produced a 2,700 button string.
Newspapers printed muddled versions of Tingue’s offer and he was swamped with 90,000 tin, cameo, pewter, brass, glass, and mother-of-pearl buttons. One charm string weighed 14 pounds. The strings were later donated to the Connecticut State Historical Museum.
Most buttons today date from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. To find a complete set of 18th century buttons from an aristocratic robe would be a real find, but an unlikely one.
Collectors would settle for just one button from such an outfit. For more information contact the National Button Society at 2733 Juno Place, Akron, Ohio 44313.
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