Inside the Booming Market for Dinosaur Fossils

Salomon Aaron (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Tracy Alloway (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:21)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

Joe, when you were a kid, or to your children now, are they into dinosaurs? Did you go through a dinosaur phase?

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love dinosaurs as a kid. My kids are, of course, into dinosaurs. They're really into not only dinosaurs, but telling me which prehistoric animals aren't dinosaurs.

Tracy Alloway (0:41)

Wait, does this come up a lot in conversation?

Joe Weisenthal (0:43)

Yeah, because I'm a troll to them. So I'll be like, what's your favorite?

No, but I'll say things like, what's your favorite dinosaur? Mine's the pterodactyl. Then my daughter rolls her eyes like, dad, pterodactyl is not technically a dinosaur.

Tracy Alloway (0:55)

Wait, is that true? I did not know that.

Joe Weisenthal (0:57)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy Alloway (0:58)

Wait, explain.

Joe Weisenthal (1:00)

It's something I don't understand it. It's not technically a dinosaur. It's a prehistoric animal of some different nature that is technically not a dinosaur. Look it up. All right.

Tracy Alloway (1:10)

Well, learn something new every day.

Joe Weisenthal (1:14)

I'm going to sound like a crank here. Not a flat earther, but I'm skeptical of dinosaurs. I'm sure they existed and I know we have fossil records of them, but here's what I don't get.

I know this isn't technically the topic, but I'm just kidding. It's like, we had all these animals and they're really crazy looking, these big beasts, and they look like dragons in some cases, or lizards, or gigantic. Then they all went extinct for some reason, probably a meteor or something. Then evolution started again. We got a new set, and the new animals don't look anything like the dinosaurs by and large.

Tracy Alloway (1:46)

That's not true. Chickens look like little dinosaurs.

Joe Weisenthal (1:49)

Come on. No, they don't. I'm sorry, they don't. They do. They don't.

I've seen Jurassic Park. I've been to the museum. I love looking at the fossil records. I know what chickens look like.

Tracy Alloway (2:00)

No, chickens have a total reptilian vibe. You can see it.

Joe Weisenthal (2:04)

I disagree. All right.

Tracy Alloway (2:06)

Okay, so this podcast is going to be-

Joe Weisenthal (2:07)

But where's the Tyrannosaurus? There's nothing that looks like a Tyrannosaurus. There's nothing that looks like a Brontosaurus.

Tracy Alloway (2:13)

Strong disagree. A lot of birds look like T-Rexes. Okay.

Joe Weisenthal (2:16)

Oh, this is the other thing. They're like, oh, they were birds and they actually had feathers. That's certainly not how they're depicted in a lot of-

Tracy Alloway (2:23)

Well, when you were growing up.

Joe Weisenthal (2:24)

A lot of birds look like T-Rexes? What?

Tracy Alloway (2:27)

Yes.

Joe Weisenthal (2:28)

No, they don't.

Tracy Alloway (2:29)

They do.

Joe Weisenthal (2:30)

No, they don't.

Tracy Alloway (2:31)

Okay. This could be 60 minutes of Joe and I arguing-

Joe Weisenthal (2:36)

A bird looks like a T-Rex? What?

Tracy Alloway (2:38)

It does.

Joe Weisenthal (2:39)

Come on.

Tracy Alloway (2:40)

You need to look at more birds, Joe. That's your problem.

Rather than us keep going with this, we're going to talk about an interesting market, a market that unusually for nowadays is actually going up and is at records, and that is the fossil market, the dinosaur fossil market.

Joe Weisenthal (2:58)

Now this, I'm very interested. I believe that fossils exist.

Tracy Alloway (3:02)

Okay. I'm glad we established that.

Joe Weisenthal (3:05)

But I'm also like, I actually was at a dinner once, and I met someone who is a commercial fossil pursuer, hunter, collector, whatever. Sounds like they're worth quite a bit of money, or they can be.

Tracy Alloway (3:18)

Yeah. So every once in a while, but I don't know anything about it. Every once in a while, you see these headlines, like a new set of fossils or a new set of bones sold for a record price. So the one that jumps out at me, because it has a finance angle, is Ken Griffin buying a stegosaurus skeleton for I think something like $45 million a couple years back. I think that was the most expensive fossil ever sold.

But anecdotally, some of the things I've been reading are saying that fossils are becoming more of a thing. Once you get to a certain level of wealth, I guess you get into art or you get into antiquities, or nowadays, maybe you get into dinosaur bones.

Joe Weisenthal (3:59)

One of those really fancy South Beach hotels, they have a big dinosaur thing in their lobby, and I think they even gold-plated it or something. It looks absolutely like...