As the once hunted its prey, so controversy now stalks the trade in its bones. Private collectors of scientifically important dinosaur fossils must tread carefully. Auction houses have recently achieved eye-popping prices, most spectacularly in 2020 with the $31.8 million sale of Stan, a 37-foot-tall T. rex that outperformed his Christie’s auction mates Picasso, Renoir, and Cézanne and smashed the previous $8.4 million record price for the sale of a fossil at auction, set in 1997
