A stuffed fox head bought for £50 at an antiques market has sold for more than £60,000 after being revealed to be an incredibly rare extinct animal.
The item was originally believed to be an antique fox before experts identified it as a thylacine – also known as a Tasmanian Tiger.
The specimen is one of the only known taxidermy examples of the species and is believed to be one of the few ever sold on the UK market.
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It attracted huge interest when it went under the hammer, eventually selling for £50,000 plus fees – taking the total above £60,000.
It sold at Auctioneum in Bristol, as reported by What’s The Jam.
A spokesperson said: “The taxidermy ‘fox head’ bought by our client for just £50 at a South West antique market, ended up selling for £60,000 in total.
“It’s actually an incredibly rare taxidermy of a Thylacine, aka a Tasmanian Tiger, the last of which died in captivity in 1936.
“There are only around 700 remains in existence, most owned by museums and institutions.
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“This head is one of the only such items to have ever been sold on the UK market.
“It’s the perfect auction story, proving that one man’s £50 ‘foxes head’ really is another man’s £50k Thylacine.”
Auctioneer Andrew Stowe said bidding quickly rocketed into the tens of thousands.
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He said: “Bids quickly jumped into the tens of thousands, and simply kept on going up.
“The room went silent, everyone crowded in to watch. It was an amazing moment to witness.”
The thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial with distinctive dog-like features that was native to New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania.
While populations in parts of its range disappeared around 2,000 years ago, the species survived in Tasmania into the 20th century before hunting, disease and habitat destruction drove it to extinction.
The last known thylacine died at Hobart Zoo in 1936, with the species officially declared extinct the following year.
Today, thylacine taxidermy, pelts, bones and other remains are highly sought after by zoologists, scientists and collectors.
Andrew Stowe said the discovery came as a major surprise.
He said: “It was quite a shock to discover we were sitting on something so special.
“The vendor had purchased it simply because the novelty googly eyes attached to it made them laugh.
“When we broke the news that it was actually a thylacine, they were in complete shock.
“Even replicas of skulls or bones sell for thousands of pounds so to find a complete item like this, is almost unheard of, especially here in the UK.”
The specimen was bought by taxidermy and natural history collector James Cranfield, who described it as “the find of a lifetime”.
He plans to ensure the head is made available to the academic and scientific community.
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