'Pawn Stars' guest brings 5 million-year-old fossilized whale bone — Rick Harrison pays her just $130
Fossils and bones are just among the most unpredictable things that have turned up on “Pawn Stars,” but in an earlier episode of the show, one guest walked in with something even more unusual. The seller was looking to sell a fossilized piece from the vertebrae of a whale, which she got from her grandfather, who was a marine biologist. She sought $600 for the relic, but Rick Harrison and Chumlee were not sure about it, so they called in Andre Lujan, the President of PaleoTex.
Harrison didn't tell the expert what the fossil was, but he instantly recognized it as a whale vertebrae, as the guest claimed. The expert looked at the color and condition to suggest that it could be as old as 5.3 million years. The pawn shop boss got right down to business and asked how much the piece of whale bone was worth, and Lujan said that, despite being well preserved, its value was $200.
The guest gasped with disappointment after this revelation, and Harrison decided to offer $100. The seller then asked for $175, and after consultation with Chumlee and some back and forth, Harrison agreed to buy it for just $130. Such a deal for a fossil millions of years old was "sweet" as far as the pawn shop boss was concerned.
But this wasn't the only time that fossilized remains from a prehistoric animal turned up on the show. Once a dinosaur bone, from the thigh to the toes, was brought into the pawn shop. Harrison was impressed at how well it was preserved, but he had his doubts.
Dinosaur bones are often faked, and some of those even end up in museums. What happens is that excavators find a particular bone from the body part of a dinosaur, and to make it look more presentable, the rest of the structure is cast in plaster. So, only a small part of the entire structure would be real bone. The guest had no idea whether what she had was real or even what dinosaur the bone belonged to.
She did, however, ask for $40,000 for the entire thing, which was a lot of money. Harrison knew better than to immediately get into a negotiation and decided to call in an expert first. In came Andre Lujan, the executive director of the Texas Through Time Museum, who immediately understood that it was a Camarasaurus leg. He, too, had similar concerns about the structure being cast in plaster, and that’s exactly what he found at first. The toes were cast in plaster.
The expert used a device to check for any signs of cellular structure in the bones, and he found them both. The three bones that were worth a lot of money were the humerus, the radius, and the ulna.
“If this thing came into my museum, I’d be very comfortable appraising it at $25,000,” he said. This was lower than what the guest had asked for, but still a lot of money. She had said that she was going to get a makeover and go on a Hawaii trip if she was able to make a deal. This kind of money would cover both.
It was then time for negotiation, and the guest said that she’d be willing to accept $21,000. This was too much money, as always, for Harrison, who said that he’d be willing to pay $15,000. The guest did not agree to this, so the pawn store owner was forced to raise his offer to $18,000. This was a much more acceptable offer, and the guest took it without negotiating any further.
“I just bought a dinosaur leg,” Harrison said afterwards. “Guess there is a first for everything.” He has bought items that are just as or more unusual than this one in the past, though.
More on Market Realist:
'Pawn Stars' guest brings a 300 million year old fossil — only to get lowballed by Rick Harrison
'Pawn Stars' boss Rick Harrison pays $1,000 over the guest's asking price for a dinosaur skull
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