A taxidermy piece, purchased for £50 at a market and believed to be a Victorian fox head, has sold for £60,000 after being identified as the only known surviving head of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger, also known as the Thylacine. The discovery has been described as a 'one of a kind find' by experts.
The Thylacine has been extinct since 1936, with only a few specimens, primarily skins, having been sold historically for substantial sums. The head in question was acquired by an anonymous seller just three months prior to the auction at a West Country antiques fair and was not anticipated to exceed its initial purchase price significantly.
However, a bidding war erupted after two auction-goers recognized the item's true identity. The sale concluded at £50,000, with an additional £10,000 in buyer's fees.
James Cranfield, a collector of taxidermy and natural history curiosities, purchased the Thylacine head. Cranfield, 38, stated that upon initially seeing the item, he found its appearance unusual. After a period of research, he became convinced it was a Thylacine specimen. "The more I looked at it over a period of about ten days I started researching I was adamant it was a Thylacine," he said. To confirm his suspicions, he drove three and a half hours from his home in Essex to the auction house.
"It was sat on a table surrounded by all sorts of bric-a-brac and pottery. It confirmed exactly what I wanted to know," Cranfield added. He noted that the only other documented specimen's whereabouts are unknown, making his acquisition the sole existing example.
The Tasmanian Tiger faced extinction due to relentless hunting, habitat loss, and introduced diseases. The last known Thylacine died at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania, Australia, in 1936. Of the 756 known specimens of the extinct species, only 101 are taxidermied.
Cranfield mentioned that previous attempts to have the head valued at other auction houses were unsuccessful, with experts deeming it "priceless" due to the lack of comparable items. His plan is to keep the head and make it available for scientific research. "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," he stated.
Auctioneer Andrew Stowe of Auctioneum Ltd in Bristol described the discovery as a "shock," noting the rarity of such a find, especially in the UK. He recalled the intense bidding, with prices quickly escalating into the tens of thousands, drawing the attention of everyone present. The final sale price left both the auction house and the vendor astonished. "When we told the vendor how much it had sold for, I thought they were about to pass out," Stowe remarked. "I actually had to offer them a chair, they couldn't believe it."