A taxidermy ‘fox head’ that was bought for £50 at a market because it looked a bit goofy has been sold for £60,000 at auction after its true nature was revealed.
Natural history enthusiast James Crawford spotted the item for sale in Bristol and, with his curiosity piqued, did a bit of extra research.
He discovered the head did not belong to a fox – but to a thylacine, also known as a Tasmanian tiger, a type of marsupial that became extinct 100 years ago.
The last known of the species died at Hobart Zoo, Tasmania, in 1936 and only a few hundred specimens still exist, most of which are skins made into rugs.
James said: ‘This was undocumented and undiscovered, and is the only known head in the world.
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‘For natural history collectors like myself this is the find of multiple lifetimes – it really is the holy grail.
‘Nobody thought it was possible. I could not believe it. I did not sleep as soon as I saw it on the auction house. I would wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat just thinking, “It can’t be, this can not be real.”‘
Only eight other specimens of the thylacine are in private hands, with James now the owner of the ninth.
The taxidermy collector had hoped to snap up a remarkable bargain, but after entering the auction room he learned somebody else had the same suspicion as him.
James, 38, said: ‘It was me and just one other person. I had a winning bid for just £28 going into it and thought I would win it for that. It ended up closing at £50,000.
‘I spoke to the other person in the car park and jokingly told him he cost me a lot of money!’
With £10,000 fees added on top, the extraordinary find ended up costing James £60,000.
Auctioneer Andrew Stowe, of Auctioneum Ltd in Bristol, said: ‘It was quite a shock to discover we were sitting on something so special.
‘The vendor had purchased it simply because the novelty googly eyes attached to it made them laugh.
‘When we broke the news that it was actually a thylacine, they were in complete shock.
‘It is unbelievably rare, even replicas of skulls or bones sell for thousands of pounds. To find a complete item like this, is almost unheard of, especially here in the UK.’
The thylacine was not a tiger as its nickname suggests, but a striped marsupial native to Tasmania, Australia and New Guinea.
Around 2,000 years ago, it disappeared from the mainland but an isolated population survived in Tasmania well into the modern era.
But it was hunted to extinction in government-backed efforts after European settlers said it was a threat to their sheep.
James said he confirmed the astonishing discovery using its teeth, saying there was ‘nothing else it could have been’.
His first step will be to get it officially authenticated, he said, then he will allow it to be used for scientific research.
He continued: ‘I just want everyone to know it exists so academics and scientists can contact me to study it. It will be invaluable to science and I want to make it available to institutions.’
Andrew, the auctioneer, said he thought the original seller was ‘about to pass out’ when they were told how much it had sold for.
He added: I actually had to offer them a chair, they couldn’t believe it. We both agreed that we’d never look at a fox in the same way ever again.’
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