A $403,200 Bite of Jurassic Park History
The screen-matched mosquito in amber that helped set the story of Jurassic Park in motion more than doubled its high estimate at auction.
A tiny mosquito just brought a mammoth price.
The screen-matched mosquito trapped in amber from the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park sold for $403,200, including buyer’s premium, during the first day of Propstore’s Summer Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction in Los Angeles on Aug. 26. The prop had been estimated at $100,000 to $200,000 and was offered at public auction for the first time.
For fans of the 1993 blockbuster, few objects could be more closely tied to the movie’s premise. The faux fossil appears during the opening sequence at the fictional Mano de Dios amber mine in the Dominican Republic, where workers uncover a prehistoric mosquito preserved in amber. In the world of Jurassic Park, blood taken from mosquitoes trapped millions of years ago provides the dinosaur DNA used to bring the long-extinct creatures back to life.
Propstore identified the piece as the one seen in close-up in the film by matching distinctive bubbles in the amber, the position of the mosquito, and the pattern where the amber meets the surrounding rock. The prop measures 4” × 6” × 2.5” and is made of resin textured and painted to resemble amber embedded in stone. It retains wear from production and age, including cracked resin and minor paint flaking.
The mosquito also became one of the movie’s most recognizable symbols. John Hammond, the visionary behind the ill-fated dinosaur park, famously carries a cane topped with another mosquito suspended in amber. The imagery became shorthand for the scientific conceit at the heart of the film.
The $403,200 fossil led the first day of the four-day Propstore sale, which realized $7.2 million from 296 lots. Other familiar pieces of pop-culture history also exceeded expectations. Doc Brown’s famous OUTATIME license plate from Back to the Future, one of a small number made by the Universal Studios sign shop and used on the time-traveling DeLorean, raced to $69,300. The plate came from scenic artist Jim Passanante, who was tasked with touching it up between takes during filming.
A Golden Snitch from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone flew to $63,000. Sculpted by prop maker Pierre Bohanna, it was one of the first six made for the film and was handled by actors and used on set as a lighting and scale reference.
Michael Jackson’s custom-made werecat teeth from “Thriller” gave bidders something to sink their teeth into at $47,250. Cast from molds of Jackson’s own teeth, the upper and lower dental appliances were the only full-length, final form werecat teeth made and used for the landmark music video. They came directly from the collection of special makeup effects legend Rick Baker.
All three surpassed their pre-auction estimates.
Released in 1993, Jurassic Park earned more than $914 million during its original theatrical run and won three Academy Awards. In 2018, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry.
More than three decades later, collectors still seem to agree with Hammond on at least one thing.
Sometimes you really do have to spare no expense.
All images courtesy of Propstore Auction.
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