Luxify is sparking up with Aguttes in preparing for the world’s largest woolly mammoth skeleton auction in history.  This will be the world’s largest privately-owned woolly mammoth skeleton on sale and the public can have the privilege of getting a good look at this 15,000-year-old skeleton extinct giant from the Ice Age before the auction on December 16, 2017 by Aguttes inside Gare de Lyon-Brotteaux.  Aguttes has previously mastered in such auction field by the exceptional sale of a dinosaur skeleton for €1,128,000 in Lyon on December 10, 2016.

It is estimated to be worth between €450,000 and €490,000, justified by its exceptional size and could be yours for about the price of a small apartment in Brooklyn.  The auction is expected not only for private collectors, but including history museums, foundations and companies.

15,000-Year-Old Gigantic Mammoth

This gigantic woolly mammoth skeleton measures 3.4 meters high, with a total span of 5.3 meters and weighting just over of 1400kg.  It is mounted in walking position, making it an ideal centrepiece in a large room or hall.

This species lived with both Neanderthal man and the early Homo Sapiens during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods until its extinction around 12,000 years ago.  It is the largest terrestrial mammal of all time and the most important specimen in the world in private hands.  The mammoth has two impressive and gigantic tusks, 62 kg for 3.32 meters and 76 kg for 3 meters respectively, which magnifies the splendor of this specimen and representing a mythical species that marks our imagination and cinematographic culture.

The specimen is unique in the world by its size, and conservation remains eminently appreciable with more than 80% of its original bones and its extraordinary 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 and other purposes.

Previous Similar Auctions

Selling of this type of specimen are not common.  The first full mammoth skeleton sold in public auction was in 2006 for €150,000 by the Cave des Vignerons de Montfrin in the Gard region.

In 2007, Christie’s Paris hosted a media sale devoted to natural history and that immediately triggered a debate between scientists, who want to keep a healthy controlled environment on the fossil market, and collectors of modern art, who are beginning to take interest in it, thus raising prices exponentially.  That mammoth skeleton was sold for €312,000 by a young contemporary art collector.

In addition, Damien Hirst’s Golden Mammoth was sold for €11 million at a charity sale in May 2014.

Appreciating The History

“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. ”    

– Alain Foucault, Extinction of Mammoths and Climate Change

For more information, visit Luxify and Aguttes.  Public viewing is available now till auction date.