T-Rex skeleton 'Trinity' goes on auction; sells for more than $6 million

A complete set of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton called Trinity was auctioned for a little more than $6 million Swiss francs ($6.1 million) at the Koller auction house in Zurich.

The 3.9 metre (12.8-foot) high skeleton, is made up of bones from three different T-rexes which are estimated to be somewhere between 65 to 67 million years old. The bones were shipped from the United States in nine giant crates.

The skeleton fetched a hammer price of 4.8 million Swiss francs, rising to 5.5 million with the buyer's premium added on.


The T-Rex skeleton, was put on sale by an anonymous US private citizen and was expected to fetch between five and eight million Swiss francs. It was bought by a private European collector.

As its name suggests, Trinity is made up of bones from three dinosaurs -- excavated between 2008 and 2013 from the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations in Montana and Wyoming. The sites are known for the discoveries of two other significant T-rex skeletons that have gone to auction.

"Sue" went under the hammer in 1997 for $8.4 million, while "Stan" took the world-record hammer price of $31.8 million at Christie's, in 2020.

Experts have warned such trade could be harmful to science by putting the specimens in private hands and out of the reach of researchers.

But Christian Link of Koller stressed that 95 percent of known T-rexes are currently in museums.