every day that it s outside is a day that it s going to destruction. we started by picking up all these thousands of fragments of bones and bagging them, labeling them. well, the plan of attack is to protect the specimen first of all, and then you go above the specimen and dig down to it so that you can get all the way around it to remove it from the cliff. we basically used these ditch-digging tools, picks and shovels, to dig down that 30 feet from where i thought we could get back into the cliff face far enough to uncover what i thought would be the limits of that skeleton. probably the hardest work i ve ever had to do in my life. we were doing this all in temperatures around 115 degrees every day. it was very hard work, but it was very easy to put in a lot of energy into it, because we all wanted to see what the skeleton was going to look like. basically, we d take different sections so we weren t in each other s way and just kind of worked the specimen until we could start remo
was also still in prison. and there were rumors that sue was going to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. it really was obvious to me by that time that the only way to get her away from maurice williams was through sotheby s. all of us was aware that the auction was taking place. it would probably sell for $1 million or $2 million. the big fear was that it was going to be sold to some private individual. i know there were a lot of people concerned that it might be bought by an institution in a foreign country. that was a big concern with the media, that it was going to be sold and lost to science and sold and put in a private room someplace. we always felt an extraordinary obligation to get this fossil to the right home. clearly, there were a lot of really interested parties that were hoping and praying they had a shot. we had dreams after the auction started developing that perhaps we could buy her back. a wonderful philanthropist from our area, stan adelstein,
well, the plan of attack is to he protect the specimen, first of all, and then you go above the specimen and dig down to it so that you can reget all the way around it to remove it from the cliff. we basically used these ditch-digging tools, picks and shovels, to dig down that 30 feet from where i thought we could get back into the cliff face far enough to uncover what i thought would be the limits of that skeleton. probably the hardest work i ve ever had to do in my life. we were doing this all in temperatures around 115 degrees every day. it was very hard work, but it was very easy to put in a lot of energy into it, because we all wanted to see what the skeleton was going to look like.
we got back after fixing the tire, and we were at the dig site. we were just finishing up doing stuff, and susan comes up. and she opens her hand, and she s got two pretty small pieces of bone, only about this big, in her hand. and i d never seen the inside of a t-rex vertebra before, but knew exactly that was what she had in her hand, and i says, is there more of it? she said, there s a lot more. so we ran, literally ran back to the site. crawl up on the cliff face, and i see three articulated vertebrae, and from that point on, i m absolutely certain this is going to be the best thing we ever found and it s going to be a complete t. rex. he called up and said, neal, i need you to bring a lot of plaster two-by-fours.
tucson gem and mineral show and really saw how specimens are purchased by museums and purchased by private collectors. and by the time we graduated, we started this business called black hills minerals as this earth science supply house. eventually my younger brother neal, who was also a student at the school of mines, and bob farrar, one of his classmates, started working with us as well. with the three of us all going to the school of mines, we were problems there, because all of us chose not to go into industry. the first year was terrible, the second year was not so good but it was sort of turning into a business. as we kept going, we kept collecting more and more fossils and had the idea of it probably would work to sell these as display specimens.