PARIS.- On Thursday 11 December, the auction house Gros & Delettrez will be offering for sale the original skull of a young specimen of Triceratops prorsus, exceptionally well preserved at over 70%. This remarkable palaeontological item represents a unique opportunity for museums, private collectors and natural science enthusiasts to acquire a 66-million-year-old emblematic fossil from the Late Cretaceous period. This specimen has been discovered in the Lance Formation, Wyoming (USA).

As the only lot in the sale, the public will be able to view this impressive skull from December 9 alongside important pieces of modern Art at the auction house's new premises, located at 2 rue de Bérite, in Paris's 6e arrondissement, next to Le Bon Marché and Hôtel Lutetia. This scientific piece, a totem of the majesty of the extinct world, will be displayed alongside a gouache by Soulages from 1963 and an oil painting by Picasso from 1943.

Of the two species defined by palaeontologists within the Triceratops genus, T. prorsus is by far the rarer and fascinates palaeontologists. "This well-preserved skull of a juvenile individual will enrich our understanding of the growth of this mythical genus," explains consultant Jonica Dos Remedios.

Discovered in the Lance Formation, Wyoming (USA), the specimen on sale, whose two horns and nose are 100% original, measures around 1m80 and stands out for the quality of its preservation, the finesse of its anatomical details and its scientific interest.

Dinosaurs skeletons, a fast-growing market

The list of prices achieved for dinosaur skeletons since the sale of ‘Sue’ in 1997 until the record sale of ‘Apex’ for 44.6 million dollars on 17 July 2024, demonstrates that prices have increased significantly over the past 25 years.

The development of this market has been marked by some major sales. In 1997, Sotheby's New York, one of the first auction houses to enter the market, brought down an unprecedented $8.4 million for Sue, a complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with all its teeth and vertebrae, 4 meters high and 13 meters long. It is now in the collection of the Field Museum in Chicago thanks to industrial donors. These almost mythological animals have fascinated humans since the 16th century and have been sought after by lovers of curiosities and collectors of prehistoric bones, fossils and minerals. In the 20th century, the enthusiasm of a number of personalities helped reawaken interest in prehistoric skeletons, which offered a source of inspiration and experimentation. Among the most famous collectors are Leonardo di Caprio, Nicolas Cage and Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft executive.

In France, these extinct giants have been offered at auction for about 20 years, giving collectors the chance to realize a childhood dream and businesses the opportunity to acquire a new good-will ambassador. Buyers often lend or donate the skeletons to museums or other institutions. In April 2008, Christie's Paris sold a Triceratops dinosaur skeleton for €592,000 to an American client who named it Cliff and donated it to the Museum of Science in Boston. That was the first dinosaur skeleton sold in France. When we compare this price to the $5.4 million obtained by Phillips auction house for a juvenile Triceratops skeleton in New York on November 19, 2025, we can see how much this market has grown.

A coveted object and great attention-getter

On October 5, 2010, Sotheby's sold a dinosaur in France for the first time. The complete skeleton of an Allosaurus dinosaur, purchased for €1,296,750 by a European collector, is currently displayed on the campus of Novartis International in Basel, Switzerland.

On December 10, 2016, an Allosaurus dinosaur skeleton called Kan was sold for €1,128,000 by AGUTTES in Lyon to Kléber Rossillon, which manages such historic sites as the Caverne du Pont- d'Arc (a facsimile of the Chauvet Cave), the Montmartre Museum and the hanging gardens of Marqueyssac in the Dordogne, where it was exhibited. "We bought it for love and for the publicity," says the buyer. "Kan appeals to the imagination of visitors, and site attendance is up."

2018: Aguttes sold a new species of dinosaur cousin of the Allosaurus exhibited at the Eiffel Tower for more than €2 million euros on June 4, 2018. It was loaned to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels which studied and where it is currently on display to the public. (Expert Eric Mickeler).

2020: The Abu Dhabi Museum bought a T-Rex skeleton called Stan for $31,800,000 (€27.09 million) at Christie's in New York, quadrupling the record for a dinosaur at auction.

2020: In October, an important Allosaurus skeleton fetched €3 million euros at auction at Binoche Giquello. The buyer remained anonymous.

2021: An American collector was behind a record in Europe for the sale of a dinosaur fossil with a triceratops called Big John, which he bought for more than €6 million euros at Binoche Giquello, on October 21.

2022: The Raptor, a skeleton of a Deinonychus antirrhopus, which inspired Steven Spielberg for his film “Jurassic Park” was sold to an Asian client at Christie’s in New York for $12.4 million.

2023: Trinity, a skeleton assembled from the bones of three different T-Rexes found between 2008 and 2013 in formations in Montana and Wyoming (United States), was sold for nearly €5.6 million euros at auction, by the Swiss auction house Koller. Trinity was purchased by the Phoebus Foundation, the foundation of businessman Fernand Huts, and is planned to be installed in the entrepreneur's cultural center in Antwerp.

2023 : Flemish entrepreneur Marc Coucke, who already owns two herbivorous dinosaur skeletons, bought a 70% complete allosaurus skeleton in a private sale (expert Eric Mickeler).

17 July 2024: the stegosaurus Apex is sold for a record price of 44.6 million dollars by Sotheby's New York, a record for the sale of a dinosaur skeleton at auction. It was bought by American billionaire Ken Griffin, owner of the Citadel pension fund and a major donor to the Republican Party.

It has been on display since 8 December 2024 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium, part of the museum's Gilder Centre. Next autumn, Apex will move to the fourth floor of the museum, where it will serve as the centrepiece for the fossil halls. Apex will remain on display for four years, after which a cast will take its place.

16 November 2024: Vulcain, the largest apatosaurus skeleton ever offered at auction, was sold for €6,063,000 on 16 November 2024 at the Château de Dampierre-en Yvelines by auction houses Collin du Bocage and Barbarossa, setting a world record for the sale of a herbivorous dinosaur. It was purchased by Marc Coucke, one of the shareholders of Pairi Daiza, one of Europe's largest animal parks, where it is currently on display.

16 July 2025: a fossil of a juvenile ceratosaurus fetched an astronomical $30.5 million at Sotheby's New York.

19 November 2025: A juvenile triceratops skeleton was sold in New York for $5.4 million by Phillips, an auction house specialising in contemporary art, which was offering a dinosaur skeleton for auction for the first time.