"Any articulated, complete skeleton gets bids," says Henry Galiano, owner of Maxilla & Mandible in New York. Galiano, who also appraises fossils and is a buying consultant for collectors and large museums, adds that incomplete fossils or fossil composites from more than one specimen, or what he calls "Frankensteins," have less appeal, as do those unattractively mounted.

Armchair Paleontologists
Some fossil enthusiasts enjoy roving into the field in their search for new specimens. Richard Garriott, an executive producer with computer game company NCsoft in Austin, Texas, has literally traveled to the ends of the earth to add to his collection.

VALUE JUDGMENT: The market for high-quality fossils has benefited from growing interest in natural history artifacts by individual collectors. Until recently a field driven primarily by institutional buyers, the presence of passionate individual collectors today has caused the price of outstanding artifacts to double and triple in the past decade. Auction houses and brokers are increasing the frequency and focus of their sales in response.

Others, like Lieberman, have found auctions to be preferable to excursions. Twice, he says, he attempted to collect fossils in the field. The first time he organized a father-son trip to search the Green River Formation in Wyoming. The outing did not turn out the way he hoped, and the experience has since become a family yarn; his son jokes of Lieberman "kidnapping him and taking him off into the wilderness," he says.

Garriott also buys at auction; he has purchased a Triceratops horn and an entire Oreodon, a forerunner of the camel, which he displays on a pedestal behind Plexiglas in his home. He is constantly on the prowl. "I have a hard time resisting feeding my collecting habit," he says. "I almost always find multiple things I’m interested in, and then I do my best to resist actually bidding until the catalog’s past due. If I succeed, then great. But if the quality or interest of the piece overpowers my ability to resist, then one more is added to the house."

Specialists such as Charlie Magovern, co-owner of Boulder, Colo.-based The Stone Co., help collectors track down new specimens and appraise their value. One client recently asked Magovern to find a small dinosaur for around $10,000; he believes he may be able to uncover an incomplete specimen in China. Magovern warns, however, that buying overseas is becoming increasingly challenging. Government officials now closely scrutinize imports and exports, making it vital for collectors to buy from reputable dealers. Even then, collectors must carefully review all documents with independent experts to make certain that their prized items are legitimate. Until 10 years ago, Magovern regularly traveled to China on the hunt for special finds. But since the country tightened its oversight standards, he no longer imports Chinese fossils himself, but works through others.

These concerns are but small hurdles for passionate collectors; indeed, the allure of finding something both new and exceptionally old often overwhelms their budgetary resolve. Despite the high prices Lieberman encountered at the show in Arizona, he ended up purchasing two trilobite fossils for his collection. "I always bring something back," he says. "If you bring your checkbook and you’re willing to open it, then you’re going to be successful. It’s just a matter of how big your checks are."

Elizabeth Harris is a staff writer for Worth.