From the DNA of this Sabre Tooth Tiger skull…

April 21, 2009
Posted by Noah

… I could create the ultimate pet. You can bet no one would mess with me. The problem really is that I’d need to learn extract the DNA, then how to clone the thing, then train it, then figure out the secret to time travel – I’ve been watching Lost, so I know a little bit already – so I could go back to find my seven year old self that day on the playground at Northrich Elementary when those grubby boys chased me, beat me up and tossed me into the bushes because I was the new kid in school. Leaving my Sabre Tooth to defend the younger version of my self, and aid in my subsequent quest for world domination, I would then travel back into time to finish this blog post, which the entire planet would be commanded to read.

First, though, I have to come up with a quarter of a million bucks to buy this thing from the Heritage May Natural History auction. So if anybody wants part of my empire – I’d be willing to give Australia, but not New Zealand – then give me a buzz and we’ll talk about partnering…

Okay, so it’s late at night as I write this, the Mavericks have just taken a terrible pounding from San Antonio and I’m a little bleary-eyed. I’ve spent the last half hour looking over the newly posted catalog for the Natural History auction and, as you might expect, there’s some pretty amazing stuff. And it’s not just dinosaur bones.

In fact, the most compelling stuff in this auction – as it strikes me, of course – comes in the gems and minerals categories. This is stuff that is truly sculpture wrought from a divine hand. There are more than a few I'd love to have (and will have once I’ve got the Saber Tooth) had I the do-re-mi. Chief among them is this Large Rhodochrosite on Quartz with Tetrahedrite and Pyrite. Or, as I like to call it, Pretty Red Rock on Wild Rice.

Just look at this thing. I know it was shaped, at least somewhat, by human hands, but that depth of color and density of material can only come from one place, and it takes thousands and thousands of years to create. Pretty cool stuff. What you may not know about it is that the crystal is actually the secret key to an alien hideout hidden deep in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Some even call it a Fortress of Solitude… It’s a steal at upwards of $400,000.

I also have to say I’m somewhat partial to this Superb Precious Gem Ammonite, which looks like a bowl of celestial Fruit Loops carelessly discarded in the middle of Saturday morning cartoons by the hand of some child of astral beings – I told you I was tired. Despite my feeble metaphor, you get the picture. And for $30,000 you can have the piece.

This multi-color Tourmaline is also pretty awesome, relatively affordable at about $3,000, and vaguely reminiscent of the Bomb Pops I used to covet so from the ice cream man in mid-July.

I’m not exactly sure how you go about finding these things raw, or even about acquiring them in such quantity and quality for an auction, but I’m sure glad I work in a place where I can be the beneficiary of others who know exactly how to do just that. Here’s one more link to the catalog for the May sale. Check it out for your daily fix of beauty.