So a Wooly Mammoth and T-Rex walk into a casino
September 6, 2009
Bonhams & Butterfields Auction has set up a mini-museum inside the old Guggenheim Hermitage Museum inside the Venetian Casino. They will be holding an auction on October 3rd, 2009. Besides auctioning off a 66-million year old Tyrannosaurex skeleton named “Samson”, there are lots and lots of other way cool fossils.
This make-shift museum is going to be open to the public starting September 18th. It only costs $6.00 per person to go inside and see this incredibly cool stuff.
I went inside a couple of days ago and Tom Lindgren, from Bonhams showed me around. He’s their Natural History Specialist and was in charge of unpacking and setting up these fossils. If you ever need to know which bone connects to another, I guess he’s your man.
Tom and I hung around the huge T-Rex, one of the largest ever found to date. He told me all about this huge creature while we stood there gazing up at it. I was wondering why there was a head sitting next to it. He said, “This is a cast skull,” he pointed up at the assembled Samson. “This is 350 pounds…. It is very scientifically important. To take a chance at mounting it, and the armature that you’d have to put up there to support the weight, it is just too much. So, the skeleton is as real as much as possible. It’s like 55% original, and the rest are cast parts from another dinosaur, another T-Rex, and the skull is cast from this.” He pointed to the head that is sitting next to the dinosaur.
Another dinosaur which was quite a bit smaller than Samson
Tom Lingren is such an interesting person to talk to. I don’t know much about dinosaurs so it is just fascinating for me to listen to him talk about them. He went through the different oddities they found with this dinosaur, a girl, by the way. She had a broken vertebra on the tail and he showed us that and how it had healed. There were also several holes in her head, some healed, some only partially. He speculated that another T-Rex was beating this girl up from time to time.
Adult and Young Einiosaurus
He said they didn’t live very long, maybe in their twenties or thirty years old. This particular type of dinosaur is believed to have lived mostly alone and not in groups. Well, hell, if you’re getting holes put in your head all the time by some cousin or mate biting you, why not live alone?
Doc Fossil and Tom Lindgren with the Shark Jaws they obtained
After a few minutes, Bill Barker, also known as “Doc Fossil”, joined in the conversation. Tom Lingren and Doc Fossil are like playful boys when they are together. Ever see a couple, mature Paleontologists turn into teenagers? Well, now I have!
The boys get on well. I guess they met while doing a show on fossils for QVC. Tom Lingren was the Indiana Jones for QVC and traveled the world for them and also selling fossils on the show. After meeting Doc Fossil on the show, they became friends. I could see, they still are best of friends.
One of the many shells up for auction
I walked around once I had bothered Tom enough with all my questions. There are so many interesting things there, all set up and displayed for you to wonder about. There was a cat with fangs, leaves fossilized, fish, sharks, a sharks mouth big enough for me to walk through, shells, just so many things. I think my favorite was the Wooly Mammoth. There is just something about that huge thing standing there that really made me keep going back.
Wolly Mammoth
The auction is going to take place October 3rd, but do get in before then to see these creatures. The auction will take place there at the museum, but there will be other auctions going on in other cities which will be connected. Bids will be taken from various locations such as San Francisco and Los Angeles while the auction is going on. I just can’t help myself; I’m going back for that too. I just find this whole thing so fascinating. I mean, they are auctioning off dinosaurs and fossils in Las Vegas! I think this is just too cool.
Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty
This preview will be open to the public starting September 18th, 2009, and will be open until the auction starts on October 3rd. Entrance cost is only $6.00 per person. It looks like Tom Lindgren will be around during the preview time talking with people. With any luck, when you go you will get to chat with him. It is like speaking to the character Ross on the TV Show “Friends”, but at a time when Ross was particularly excited about a dinosaur.
Ammonites
Written by ColinFromLasVegas on September 7, 2009 at 6:27 am
Nice article, Pam. Thanks for the follow up information for visitation. My friends and I are definitely going to see this exhibit.
I was chatting with my friends about this once in a lifetime chance. We are all excited about seeing all the fossils because if they don’t get bought by a museum, they’ll end up with private collectors and probably won’t see the light of day ever again.
We also pursued the idea of buying Samson and, whoever got it, we would set it out for display in the front yard. I guarantee the Metro PD crime statistics for the neighborhood would clearly reveal it’s the safest in Las Vegas. But alas, the price is a little too steep. I think they figure that T-Rex will sell for between $6-$8 million dollars. Sheesh.
(Criminal): “Yeah, we went to burglarize this house at night. The pickin’s looked good… But then! It was crazy! We saw this shadow! OH MY GOD! It was like Godzilla or somethin’ was there and this monster was lookin’ at us! Had teeth and fangs and stuff like from a cheap 1950s Grade B science fiction mutant monster movie or somethin’. So, we hightailed it. I ain’t never goin’ back there again. Scared the crap outta me…”
Written by Pam on September 8, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Colin, you are such a hoot!