The first sale of a large dinosaur skeleton at auction in the UK will take place at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex on Wednesday, 27th November 2013 as part of their Evolution Sale.
The massive 17 metre specimen is a Diplodocus longus, one of the most iconic of dinosaurs and one of the largest animals ever to have walked on earth, some 150 million years ago.
Relatively complete Diplodocus skeletons are extremely rare and this specimen joins only a handful of other known examples. Indeed such is it’s rarity that even the famous Diplodocus “Dippy” in the Natural History Museum, London, is a plaster copy taken from an original in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was itself composed from at least two different fragmentary skeletons.
This female Diplodocus, “Misty” as she has been nicknamed, carries an estimate of £400,000-600,000. Misty was found by the children of the celebrated dinosaur hunter Raimund Albersdoerfer near to the famous, privately owned Dana quarry in Wyoming and painstakingly prepped at a leading fossil laboratory in Holland before being assembled in the UK.
Viewing times: Saturday 23rd November to Tuesday 26th November 10am-4pm and on the morning of the sale or by appointment at; Summers Place Auctions, The Walled Garden, Billingshurst, West Sussex, RH14 9AB
The catalogue will be available a month before the sale and will be fully illustrated on the website.
For further information on the auction, please visit www.summersplaceauctions.com or call 01403 331331.
