|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Editions | myCNN | Video | Audio | Headline News Brief | Feedback | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WorldViewPrehistoric Items Are on Auction in L.A.Aired August 27, 2000 - 6:25 p.m. ETTHIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Think of an auction, and paintings, and jewelry, or sculpture may come to mind. Some of those items may have a rich and a varied history. Well, how about prehistory? CNN's Anne McDermott shows some really old items on the block in Los Angeles. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look at these guys. Now, look at these guys. Yep, they're in love, devoted to dinos. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to have a t. Rex. MCDERMOTT (on camera): You want to have a t. Rex? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. MCDERMOTT: Why? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I want one. MCDERMOTT (voice-over): Well, he can't have one, but he can have a sabre tooth tiger skull, or a fish fossil, or this. DAVID HERSKOWITZ, BUTTERFIELD & BUTTERFIELD: This is actually a nest of 15 dinosaur eggs. MCDERMOTT: These treasures are being sold through the Butterfield & Butterfield Auction House in Los Angeles along with meteorites, jewels, a prehistoric bear, an unprehistoric bat and several sharp teeth. HERSKOWITZ: It's a collection of 197 prehistoric sharks teeth. MCDERMOTT: Individuals found these items, items like this 200 million-year-old fossil of an early winged vertebrate, which may bring in a quarter of a million dollars. Now, the folks at Butterfield & Butterfield say they won't sell anything that scientists haven't first had a chance to study. This fossil, for example, had been in a museum for 30 years, but museum folks say, they still don't like it. LINDA ABRAHAM, LOS ANGELES NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM: It's like taking a jigsaw puzzle perhaps, and removing some of those pieces and putting them away in private drawers -- do you ever get the whole picture? MCDERMOTT: A geologist says it's like hoarding great art, or... PROF. MICHAEL WOODBURNE, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA AT RIVERSIDE: The equivalent would be people that used to go out and hunt big game in Africa, they bring back a trophy, put it on their wall, in their den, they're very proud of it. MCDERMOTT: Well, if that's what you want, this auction has that, too. But the Butterfield & Butterfield folks like to point out that Sue, the famous t. Rex was sold at auction and now resides in a Chicago museum. HERSKOWITZ: Just about every natural history museum in this country originally was a private collection. MCDERMOTT: But some may want to hold on to their dinosauria, at least a little while. We know they would. Anne McDermott, CNN, Los Angeles. (END VIDEOTAPE) TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com |
Back to the top |
© 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. |