Outer Space And History Auctioned Off

Snow blower, paisley tie, new socks - yawn.

Wouldn’t Dad be thrilled to see a fossilized dinosaur embryo under the tree this Christmas?

Well, he’s not alone. Buyers snapped up offerings from outer space and ancient history when an auction house put rocks from Mars and the skull of a triceratops on the block Saturday.

Like Hollywood’s biggest movie-makers, Phillips International Auctioneers & Valuers was betting that little green men and big green dinosaurs would add up to big bucks. While buyers didn’t spend quite as much as the auction house had predicted, the bidding on some top items was heated.

With the wave of an auction paddle, New York musician Marina Contrucci dropped a cool $19,000 on a 269-pound meteorite billed as a “natural sculpture” - and that was before Phillips and the state added their surcharges and taxes.

“It was something we’d had our eyes on,” Contrucci said afterward.

Some buyers were able to pick up outer space knickknacks for a lot less.

Those looking for something in red could expect a lot less for their money.

Martian rocks were at a premium - one 7.6 gram slice of the planet pulled in $11,000 from a buyer over the telephone. The meteorite was found in 1962 by a Nigerian farmer and confirmed by scientists as a piece of Mars in 1995. The selling price was $3,000 less than Phillips’ estimated low end, but still went for close to $1,500 a gram.