The Straits Times reports this, citing the Drouot auction house.
The handbag, made from collagen extracted from a Tyrannosaurus rex femur found in Montana, USA, was presented in Amsterdam this spring as “the world’s first item made from dinosaur leather.” According to paleontologist Jacopo Briano, who accompanied the lot, biotechnologists made it possible to “train a cell culture to produce real Tyrannosaurus rex leather in a laboratory.”
Unlike vegan leather, which consists mainly of plastic, this material is 100 percent organic, yet it comes from an animal that went extinct 67 million years ago. Auction organizers estimated the lot’s value at 300,000–500,000 euros (6–10 million Moldovan lei), but bids did not exceed $150,000 (2.6 million lei). Ultimately, the lot failed to sell.
Auction representatives acknowledged that they had to come up with a price, as there had been no similar precedents. The future of the bag—which may be the only one of its kind in history—remains uncertain; negotiations with private collectors are ongoing.
