Estimate Price € 450,000 - 500,000


The most important mammoth skeleton in private hands will be sold at Auguttes auction on Saturday, December the 16th of 2017 in Lyon (France).

The auction house AGUTTES was already noticed by the exceptional sale of a dinosaur skeleton for € 1,128,000 in Lyon on December 10, 2016.

It is an even bigger skeleton that will be exhibited and auctioned on December 16 at AGUTTES in the Gare de Lyon-Brotteaux: a gigantic mammoth measuring 3.40 meters in height with a wingspan of 5.30 meters and weighing in excess of 1400 Kg, mounted in walking position.

It is estimated 450,000 / 490,000 €, a price justified by its exceptional size.

This species was contemporary with Neanderthal man in the Middle Paleolithic and Homo sapiens in the Upper Paleolithic, until its extinction around 12,000 years ago. This mammoth, the largest terrestrial mammal of all time and the most important specimen in the world in private hands, shows, at its head, two impressive and gigantic tusks ( 62 Kg for 3.32 m and 76 kg for 3 meters respectively), which magnify the splendor of this specimen, representing a mythical species that marks , obviously, our imagination and cinematographic culture.

The specimen is unique in the world by its size which ranks it in the largest known specimens, its conservation which remains eminently appreciable with more than 80% of original bones and finally by the quality of its extraordinary and huge defenses with precious caramel and ivory hues mixed.

This remarkable mammoth specimen is also one of the few in the world that has all its authorizations to leave the Russian territory. It may therefore be valued, exported, resold and used publicly for commercial, advertising or other purposes.

Sales of this type of specimen are not common. The first full mammoth skeleton sold in public auction in 2006 was bought € 150,000 by the Cave des Vignerons de Montfrin, in the Gard, which has since based all its communication on the mammoth.

In 2007, Christie's Paris organizes a media sale devoted to natural history that immediately triggers a debate between scientists who want to keep their hands on the fossil market, and collectors of modern art who are beginning to take an interest in it. raise prices. Finally, the mammoth skeleton is bought 312,000 € by a young collector of contemporary art.

In addition, Damien Hirst's Golden Mammuth was sold in a € 11 million charity sale in May 2014.

It is currently on display at the train station of Lyon-Bretteaux.

"The mammoth is an emblematic animal of prehistory. The fact that he lived with the man, and that we still find carcasses with their flesh and their hairy skin preserved in the frozen lands of Siberia makes him close to us. But its disappearance, some 10,000 years ago, although some have survived until 3700 years ago on the Siberian island of Wrangel, has been accompanied by many other extinctions of species in the Ancient and the New World. Other episodes of species extinctions, some of much greater magnitude, have marked the history of life on Earth, and it is worthwhile to gauge the importance of it before seeing what the disappearances of the Mammoths and other large vertebrates can actually teach us about extinctions and how they relate to climate change. "  

Sources: Alain Foucault - Extinction of Mammoths and Climate Change.