Triceratops skeleton 'Trey' to hit the auction block as dinosaur market
soars
[March 03, 2026]
By R.J. RICO
A triceratops skeleton that stood in a Wyoming museum for decades will
be auctioned off, a rare instance of a museum-exhibited dinosaur going
to the auction block just as the market for the prehistoric giants has
hit record highs.
The fossil, dubbed “Trey,” will be open for bidding from March 17 to 31
on Joopiter, an online auction platform founded by Grammy-winning artist
and producer Pharrell Williams. It has a preauction estimate of $4.5
million to $5.5 million.
Dating back more than 66 million years to the late Cretaceous period,
Trey was discovered near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1993 by Lee Campbell and the
late Allen Graffham, a commercial paleontologist who made numerous
significant finds over his lifetime.
The 17-foot-long (5.3-meter-long) herbivore greeted visitors at the 1995
grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, and
remained there on loan until 2023.
Having been recently sold in a private transaction, it is now in
Singapore, where it is available for private viewings through the end of
March, Joopiter said.
Trey “has this cultural aspect that a lot of fossils that go to auction
these days just simply don’t have,” said paleontologist Andre LuJan, who
worked with Joopiter to prepare the fossil for auction. “This one is
connected to people and undoubtedly has inspired young children who’ve
seen it to pursue a career in paleontology.”
Once the domain of museums and universities, dinosaur fossils have
become increasingly popular investments.
In 2024, the remains of “Apex” the stegosaurus went for $44.6 million at
auction, shattering the previous record of $31.8 million paid in 2020
for “Stan,” a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.
In a sign that the dinosaur fossil market remains strong, a rare young
dinosaur skeleton blew past its $4 million to $6 million Sotheby’s
preauction estimate in July and ended up fetching more than $30 million
in a bidding frenzy, including fees and costs.
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In this photo made available by JOOPITER, a triceratops skeleton,
dubbed Trey, is displayed at Co-Museum at Le Freeport Singapore,
Feb. 5, 2026. (Courtesy of Joopiter via AP)
 Caitlin Donovan, Joopiter’s global
head of sales, said the surging interest reflects a shift away from
traditional categories like old master paintings and toward objects
that have “cultural resonance.”
“(Dinosaurs) have always captivated our imagination ... and people
are now starting to see the value in investing in these as assets,”
LuJan said.
But the hot market has some paleontologists concerned that important
specimens could disappear into private collections, depriving
scientists of important research opportunities. Public museums are
“getting totally priced out of an exploding market,” said Kristi
Curry Rogers, a paleontologist at Minnesota’s Macalester College.
“If a fossil goes into a private collection without guaranteed
access forever, that data is essentially lost to science,” said
Curry Rogers, who is not involved in the sale.
LuJan emphasized that Trey has always been privately owned, and he
hopes it will end up in a museum, just like Apex, which is now on
display at New York’s American Museum of Natural History after its
buyer signed a long-term loan agreement allowing scientists to study
it.
“Because we’ve had this paradigm shift in what owning dinosaurs
means to society, people are naturally gravitating toward these
benevolent situations where they loan them long-term to museums or
they end up donating them to a new museum that’s just being born,”
LuJan said.
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