'Pawn Stars' boss Rick Harrison pays $1,000 over the guest's asking price for a dinosaur skull
Guests on “Pawn Stars” bring almost anything from action figures to crutches that have guns built inside them to America's most famous pawn shop. But there are always surprises, such as the head of a dinosaur, that turn up on the show. Rick Harrison was once approached by a guest who had a collection that included a fossilized skull, a fossilized fish, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth. Although he Harrison doesn't loosen his purse strings easily, he didn't hold back this time.
The guest initially said that he’d want $12,000 for the whole set - $8,000 for the skull, $3,000 for the tooth, and $1,000 for the fish. Harrison was impressed with what was in front of him. However, he knew that an expert needed to check them out before he could make an offer. He therefore called a friend of his who could help him, a man named Andre.
Andre was also instantly impressed with the collection, but he realized that things were not what they seemed like. He held the T-Rex tooth in his hand and revealed that it was a fake. “The weight’s not right. It feels like an artificial substance. This is definitely not genuine,” he said. However, the other two items were. The second item that the expert saw was the fish, and he confirmed that it was not a fake.
“It’s a priscacara that lived in a freshwater lake system in the Western United States during the Eocene period. Through a series of volcanic events, these fish were really well preserved in the volcanic ash that suffocated everything in the lakes, and that’s why they were well preserved,” Andre explained. During negotiations, Harrison had said that he was not interested in purchasing the priscacara fossil as he had plenty of similar ones already. It was valued at $500 by the expert.
Finally, it was time for the big one. “This is another fossil I’m really familiar with and really faked quite often,” he said. The guest had a concerned look on his face. Thankfully, it was not a fake but a fine item. Andre revealed, after picking up the snout, that it was the skull of a Dyrosaur, which was basically an Eocene period crocodile. When asked how old it would be, the expert said that it would be around 50 to 60 million years old.
“Right after the dinosaurs went extinct, these guys managed to find a foothold and survive. These guys would float up to the top of the water and just wait for fish to swim by their open jaws, and they’d snap them shut,” Andre added. When asked what the value of the skull was, he said $16,000, which made the guest quite happy. The expert even said that it was one of the best specimens he’d ever seen.
When the time came for negotiations, Rick was the bigger man and said that he'd pay $9,000 instead of the $8,000 the guest had asked for earlier for the skull. There was a little bargaining, but that was ultimately the price all parties agreed upon.
