(Riverton, WY) – A Tyrannosaurus Rex nicknamed “Gus” recently became the most expensive dinosaur fossil display ever sold, fetching a record-breaking $50.13 million during a Sotheby’s auction in New York on July 14. The anonymous buyer secured the purchase after a 10-minute bidding war among seven bidders for the 67-million-year-old predator, which measures roughly 38 feet long and 12.5 feet tall.
Gus, named after Gary “Gus” Licking, the rancher whose land he was found on, is considered one of the largest and most complete T. Rex specimens ever discovered, and former Riverton resident Jason Hammer had a part in the restoration process.
Discovered in 2021 on Licking’s land in Harding County, South Dakota, Gus was excavated, prepared, and restored over the course of five years by Theropoda Expeditions, a company specializing in commercial excavation, preparation, and mounting of dinosaur fossils. The specimen is estimated to be about 61-63% complete by bone count (which represents 75% to 80% of the animal’s total bone mass) and includes an exceptionally preserved skull along with several rarely preserved bones.
Hammer, a 2014 Riverton High School graduate with a geology degree from Black Hills State University, works as a laboratory technician for Theropoda Expeditions and was there for the initial discovery of Gus.
Hammer said the bones were discovered about a year after he started with the company, when a Theropoda scout spotted what appeared to be a metatarsal (a foot bone) protruding from a hillside on Licking’s land. Soon afterward, aluminum foil-wrapped fossil fragments began arriving at the lab, where Hammer was tasked with carefully cleaning them so experts could determine exactly what had been uncovered.
“I remember my boss coming in with a big plastic tote with a bunch of aluminum foil packets, all excited… I was cleaning something and handing it over, not really knowing what it was,” Hammer said, adding that despite his geology degree, he never had any formal paleontology education. He said the moment the upper portion of the skull and teeth arrived at the lab was especially memorable because they were immediately recognizable as part of a T. Rex.
“What followed was five years of excavation, mapping, and restoration: nearly a thousand individual pieces collected, identified, and painstakingly reassembled by hand, bone by bone, in a process that has almost nothing in common with how the movies show it,” according to a Sotheby’s profile video. “The animal was eventually mounted on a custom armature inside one of the only spaces in town big enough to hold him — a pickleball court.”
Hammer’s work focused on cleaning, restoring, molding, and painting bones, while his coworkers examined each newly exposed bone to determine where it fit within the skeleton.
Restoration often meant repeatedly assembling and disassembling fossils as warped bones were adjusted to fit together correctly after millions of years of geological pressure, Hammer explained. He also spent considerable time color-matching repaired sections using acrylic paints, a process he said proved surprisingly difficult because fossilized bone contains countless shades of brown created by years of mineralization and weathering.
Hammer was with the project from the 2021 discovery until major restoration work wrapped up in 2025, with some final elements completed just weeks before Gus’ promotional photo shoot. Although he wasn’t involved in arranging the eventual sale, he said learning the skeleton had sold for more than $50 million was difficult to comprehend.
“It’s pretty wild,” Hammer said. “I can’t really wrap my head around it… It’s overwhelming.”
Hammer added that he hopes the anonymous buyer will eventually donate Gus to a museum, but until that potentially happens, he has already moved on to smaller fossil projects as Theropoda Expeditions revisits previously discovered sites to determine whether overlooked specimens deserve a second look.
You can check out the Sotheby’s video below to learn more about Gus and hear from Jason directly.