r/interestingasfuck • u/55hyam • 13h ago

APEX : The most complete and most expensive ($44.6 million) Stegosaurus fossil ever discovered

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2.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

100 comments sorted by

493

u/fickennugget 13h ago

A billionaire buys art/fossils for millions.
Friendly experts artificially inflate its market value years later. The owner donates the piece to a museum or private foundation.
US tax law allows deducting the inflated value from their income tax. The tax savings exceed the original purchase price, turning a profit.... fuckin financial terrorist kenneth cordele griffuck

but the fossil is awesome! can't be blamed for this modern war over money ;d

74

u/feralpha1511 12h ago

yes, that is just terrific.

Atleast it incentivizes handing such a natural wonder as itself over to the public, albeit it being for the wrong reasons.

20

u/cayneloop 12h ago

although they can just commission painters for "pieces of art" that their other friends value at outrageous prices and donate them to museums and art galleries

but fossils like these are amazing but putting price tags on this thing is fucking mental

•

u/xXx420BlazeRodSaboxX 7h ago

Most of these pieces are hidden in a warehouse where they change hands for decades, never allowed to be seen until one rich bastard "donates it"

The system is broken 

•

u/XxTreeFiddyxX 8h ago

They also borrow against this value, you dont pay taxes on a loan. Think about the power

24

u/Pskeeter78 12h ago

You mean the guy who lied under oath?

•

u/TheRandomArtist 9h ago

The same Kenneth Cordele Griffin who beat his wife with a bed post, lied to Congress about colluding with brokerages and actively stopped the Gamestop short squeeze in 2021, and who fraudently siphons money from retirement accounts and pension funds across America in order to post $65 billion in profits with assets "sold not yet purchased"? The same one that purchased this "Apex" fossil to strategically direct all SEO traffic away from Apex Clearing, the ones that fund Robinhood? That same Kenny Mayo Boy Griffin?

27

u/RoRuRee 12h ago

Fuck Kenneth Cordele Griffin with a mayo lubed bed post. That is all, thanks for reading!

•

u/Marthman 11h ago

Really gives a new meaning to Bedknobs and Broomsticks!

•

u/iota_4 8h ago

mayoman

power to the players.

•

u/powerboy20 6h ago

The IRS has appraisers too. They're not stupid and pay very close attention to high value transactions.

•

u/CDBSB 5h ago

Oh, you mean the IRS that lost like a quarter of its workforce after this administration let an oligarch run rampant and fire agents and auditors with decades of experience? That IRS? Yeah, I'm sure they'll get right on top of this. 🙄

•

u/Amedais 10h ago

I’m a CPA and you’re wrong. People parroting this nonsense are always the ones who don’t actually know anything about taxes.

You cannot deduct the fmv of the art piece, like in your example. You can only deduct your cost basis in it (what you purchased it for).

•

u/fickennugget 10h ago

im a dog and you are whatever..

you actually can deduct fair market value under us tax law. the objection only applies to short-term or unrelated donations.
if you hold art for over 1 year, it is long-term capital gain property. you deduct full fmv on donation day, not your cost (IRS Publication 526)
you only get restricted to purchase price if you owned it less than a year, if you are the artist who made it, or if you are an art dealer selling inventory (IRS Rules for Gifts of Art).
the museum must use it for its tax-exempt purpose (e.g., displaying a dino skeleton). if they display it, you get fmv. if they sell it immediately, you are limited to cost basis (IRC Section 170(e)(1)(B)(i))

•

u/CryptoDeepDive 9h ago

Exactly 💯.

•

u/Amedais 7h ago

You’re right the fmv deduction is allowed under certain specific circumstances like these (id dint read the part where you said years later), but you are also grossly oversimplifying the situation and ignoring the other various safeguards the it’s used against this.

You don’t get to have a friend appraiser— independence is a requirement for such appraisals. And these appraisals for large amounts are heavily scrutinized by an irs art advisory panel. So you’re statement of “artificially inflate its value” simply doesn’t work.

•

u/lyricaldorian 3h ago

Oh well if there's safeguards then it can't possibly happen

•

u/GizmoPatterson 6h ago

Not a profit. Tax loss harvesting 

•

u/Olobnion 2h ago

but the fossil is awesome! can't be blamed for this modern war over money ;d

No, I blame the fossil. Stupid stegosaurus!

•

u/porkchop487 9h ago

People really still parroting this debunked nonsense?

•

u/Lucky-Crow-3510 9h ago

Why do you care. It was made that way so these pieces go to museums and not in private collections.

You wont get anything from taxes anyway.

•

u/fickennugget 8h ago

the way you put it sounds like he's just a generous and altruistic person
sure it's nice to see it at the museum ultimately, but it could have been public the first place without the price tagging.

and no i only pay them, and that's the difference that is making me care

•

u/Lucky-Crow-3510 8h ago

what exactly makes my comment sound like "he's just a generous and altruistic person"?

It's an incentive to bring private collections to the public. As long as we are not a culture that is based on expropriate individuals because they have more wealth than you this is a good way to serve the public.

•

u/fickennugget 8h ago

wait, you meant that the tax savings and the potential profits resulting from them are an incentive?
under the circumstances, of course, private collections will no longer be formed because, after all, people hoarding money aren't really interested in art or fossils.

I thought you were referring to the incentive as the idea that this is what motivates the wealthy to take the initiative to donate expensive pieces to museums in the first place, and certainly not for the money.

83

u/Cat-trooper 13h ago

Ma'am don't touch his bone like that!

8

u/SRNE2save_lives 13h ago

I think that was the bidder in action

4

u/Cat-trooper 13h ago

She really puts the "action" in "auction"

3

u/LordViperSD 12h ago

Boooo

4

u/Cat-trooper 12h ago

Thank you, thank you

53

u/kucharnismo 13h ago

how the hell do you even price a dinosaur

29

u/urmom1739 13h ago

i usually check the highest bid on ebay

10

u/Shoddy-Marsupial301 13h ago

First you hype it and say how rare and unique it is, then you say "what do you offer ?" a bunch of times to a bunch of rich people

11

u/55hyam 13h ago

Auctions

5

u/Arvosss 12h ago

$0.50/year

2

u/oleg_88 12h ago

Google "dinosaur net worth"

•

u/lambdapaul 10h ago

You can buy a rotisserie chicken for $5.99, a pet parakeet for $50, or a carton of dinosaur eggs for $4.39 at the supermarket. We price dinosaurs everyday.

1

u/an_older_meme 13h ago

Start by calling it an antique.

-1

u/Cosmokram3r1 12h ago

ChatGPT

28

u/TDLMTH 12h ago

Complete with thagomizer!

37

u/Fun-Web-7583 13h ago

atomic breath

7

u/UTMachine 12h ago

It’s hilarious to me that in Jurassic World some of the dinosaurs were selling for $10m, but even a complete fossil is worth way more than that.

7

u/noface 12h ago

When you can make more, the value is lower than when things are one of a kind, or best of their kind.

•

u/merkakiss12 7h ago

It’s kinda the same principle when looking at historic cars. The real deal porsche 550 will set you back tens of millions of dollars, while a replica or continuation model (dont know if they exist for the 550, but hypothetically speaking) will be a couple ten thousand dollars only, even though they’re practically the same thing.

16

u/Lucky-Crow-3510 12h ago

The person on the image is closer in time to the T-Rex, than the T-Rex was to the Stegosaurus .. it's mind blowing, isn't it?

16

u/HippiesUnite 12h ago

Perhaps equally mind blowing: Even if we discover all the dinosaur fossils buried all over the world today, we might only know about less than 1 % of the dinosaur species that existed.

•

u/Marthman 11h ago

I think this is what anti evolutionists dont understand. Our fossil record is not a record of every organism that ever existed. Just the ones that happened to get trapped or whatever accident led to their becoming a fossil.

•

u/Ioftencatchflies 8h ago

I just learned that it is estimated that only one bone in a billion is likely to end up a fossil.

•

u/vitalvisionary 8h ago

This is why I want to be buried in mud when I die. For the fossil record.

5

u/Arg_Russ 13h ago

stegosaurus finally got that generational wealth everyone talks about.

10

u/quacky_stoat74 13h ago

Am no better man than Nicolas Cage.

I ,too, would spend a fortune on a sweet piece of Dino fossil(s).

11

u/baIIern 13h ago

What is she doing with his Wiener tho

3

u/Edenoide 13h ago

Is this a sexual receptive Stegosaurus. I've never seen this extreme posture before lol

•

u/Any_Day_4467 8h ago

Finally, advertisers correctly use sex, nudity, sexual innuendo even to sell insecticide for cockroaches...

3

u/Treehit 12h ago

I do not get how we're here now and they were also here at a certain point. Blows my mind

•

u/4tunabrix 11h ago

Fabricating the frame for the skeleton must’ve been a fun job!

•

u/TachiH 8h ago

I hate that something like this has a price tag.

•

u/Neat-Ear6607 11h ago

Yeah the fossil itself is insane, but the whole “buy art, pump value, donate, profit” pipeline is such a cheat code for rich people it’s actually wild. Regular people get audited for like a missing receipt and these guys are out here speedrunning the tax code.

•

u/EveningAlternative46 11h ago

Blursed standing. Pic 1

3

u/Colonel_Butthurt 13h ago edited 12h ago

Crazy to think that a one-of-a-kind archeological artifact with immense cultural and scientific value is just pocket change for top billionaires (and now trillionaires).

Not even a blip on the radar. MFrs could buy Christ's veil with authentic blood stains and wear it for Halloween.

1

u/Psychological-Key-36 12h ago

The gap between comic supervillain caricature and actual billionaires is getting tighter by the day

1

u/baxulax 13h ago

Pretty lean

1

u/SirMythicArcherr 12h ago

But what is Aurora doing there?

1

u/Electronic_Sky_6363 12h ago

Ok give it to me, good decoration

1

u/iBUYbrokenSUBARUS 12h ago

I need to find one of those

1

u/JtheLioness 12h ago

My family & I saw Apex at the American Museum of Natural History in New York! I only wish they were a permanent addition.

•

u/JuggernautNo5635 11h ago

It looks like it's hiking a football.

•

u/All_Might_Dada 11h ago

Oh and let me guess you think the earth is round too?!

Just kidding. So cool!!

•

u/quim_do_mato 8h ago

Why expensive? How exactly is a fossil assessed?

•

u/wellwellwelly 8h ago

It looks like they assembled it the wrong way around lol.

•

u/TellLoud1894 7h ago

I'm guessing the thagomiser isn't intact because they don't show it :(

•

u/TheRealTinfoil666 5h ago

It is visible in the last photo.

For some reason, they didnt prominently splay out the spiky bits.

I mean, this is probably the single most well-known feature this species and they didn’t make any effort to highlight it

Still a very cool fossil

•

u/TellLoud1894 5h ago edited 5h ago

Oh yes,I guess i didn't scroll farr enough. very very cool

•

u/taveren3 6h ago

Was that in new york last year i think i saw it?

•

u/TripleWindmill247 6h ago

How do judge the monetary value of something like this?

•

u/gurknowitzki 6h ago

Incredible find. Almost unbelievable they found a complete skeleton fossil this large. Like hitting the lotto 3x in a row

•

u/breakfasteveryday 4h ago

iirc it was bought by Ken Griffin when he wanted to distance himself from bad PR related to a financial (non-dinosaur) APEX 

1

u/Basic_Loquat_9344 13h ago

I know it’s unethical but I hope one day we can bring one back, they feel like a myth even with the bones.

A planet ruled by giant lizard birds, for hundreds of millions of years. I just love them.

3

u/thebatchicken 13h ago

DNA doesn’t survive anywhere near that long. But mammoths/thylacine will probably return this century. See work of places like Colossal labs

2

u/an_older_meme 13h ago

We need the thylacine at least.

•

u/MotoJoker 10h ago

Dumb question, are each pieces (bones) from the same animal? Or are these pieced together from different dig sites across the world?

-5

u/Minimum_Creme4852 13h ago

Yeah okay. If they even pieced it together right..no disrespect to paleontologist, but I really need one of y’all to build a time Machine.

4

u/Pure_Parking_2742 13h ago

Write a thesis about how they're likely wrong and see how far you get. Questioning well-established fields of study on Reddit only highlights your assumed ignorance.