£50 market find revealed as rare thylacine, fetches £50,000
A taxidermy specimen bought for just £50 at an antiques market in southwest England has sold for £50,000 after being identified as a rare mounted head of a thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, Qazinform News Agency reports.
The item, initially believed to be a Victorian taxidermy fox head, was sold at an auction in Bristol on August 11. The winning bid came from a buyer in the room, with the total price exceeding £60,000 including buyer fees. Auctioneum described the specimen as “one of the most important specimens sold in recent years.”
The seller reportedly bought the item simply because its googly eyes made them laugh, unaware of its true identity.
“It was quite a shock to discover we were sitting on something so special,” said Andrew Stowe of Auctioneum. “When we broke the news that it was actually a thylacine, they were in complete shock.”
The thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial native to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. Mainland populations disappeared around 2,000 years ago, while an isolated population survived in Tasmania into the modern era. Hunting, habitat fragmentation and introduced diseases contributed to its decline after European settlement. The last known thylacine died at Hobart Zoo in 1936.
According to Auctioneum, only 756 thylacine specimens are known to exist, including 101 taxidermy specimens. Complete mounted heads are virtually nonexistent outside major museums and scientific institutions, and only one taxidermy head is believed to exist.
“It is unbelievably rare,” Stowe said. “To find a complete item like this is almost unheard of, especially here in the UK.”
The auction attracted intense bidding, with bids quickly reaching tens of thousands of pounds before the hammer fell at £50,000.
“When we told the vendor how much it had sold for, I thought they were about to pass out!” Stowe said. “I actually had to offer them a chair; they couldn’t believe it.”
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that the 2026 International Falcon Breeders Auction, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, recorded its most expensive sale of the year, as a mottled gyr (Super White) chick fetched SAR1.3 million ($346,274), the second-highest price in the auction’s history.