{"id":936485,"date":"2026-10-22T04:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T04:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936485\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T04:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T04:30:14","slug":"second-thylacine-head-hits-uk-auction-house-just-weeks-after-first-rare-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936485\/","title":{"rendered":"Second thylacine head hits UK auction house just weeks after first rare sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but that’s not the case for one British auction house.<\/p>\n

Just weeks after a rare privately owned thylacine head sold well above reserve, a second mounted head has been found and presented to the auction house.<\/p>\n

Bristol-based auctioneer Andrew Stowe, from Auctioneum, said the latest find of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, nicknamed Trevor, came from a family in London who had been storing it under a bed.<\/p>\n

\"Mounted<\/p>\n

The head was stored under a bed. (Supplied: Auctioneum)<\/p>\n

He said the family had stashed the head out of sight as they were “genuinely quite frightened of it”.<\/p>\n

“The story, as I understand it, is that they were reading the news and spotted the report of our previous example.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think they have ever gotten out of the bed as quick as they did that day to go and get it out.”\"A<\/p>\n

A radiograph taken by a local vet confirmed the head as belonging to a thylacine. (Supplied: Auctioneum)<\/p>\n

Mr Stowe said the latest find came with some provenance.<\/p>\n

It is understood the specimen was shot in Sheffield, in Tasmania’s north-west, sometime in the early 1900s and brought to the UK in 1905, where it changed hands a number of times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Trevor is understood to have arrived in the UK in 1905. (Supplied: Auctioneum)<\/p>\n

He said unlike the first specimen, which had a bulbous head and googly eyes that led auctioneers to believe it was a fox, this latest taxidermied Tasmanian tiger had been sculpted well, likely by someone who had seen a thylacine in real life.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

“It could do with some sympathetic restoration, but it is in good condition,” Mr Stowe said.<\/p>\n

“One of its ears has come loose at some point, probably about 50 or 60 years ago, but it’s present, so it is complete.<\/p>\n

“There is not a googly eye in sight on this one.”<\/p>\n

The find is the third-known mounted thylacine head in existence.<\/p>\n

Once-in-a-lifetime discovery, twice<\/p>\n

In August, UK collector James Cranfield purchased a mounted thylacine head after a heated bidding war<\/a> with another bidder who also recognised what it really was.<\/p>\n

The head, which was sold in poor condition, had been listed as a fox’s head and was expected to fetch between \u00a330 ($57) to \u00a350 ($95).<\/p>\n

It ended up selling for \u00a362,600 ($120,000), including auction fees.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Curiosity shop owner James Cranfield with the mounted thylacine head he bought at auction. (Instagram\/@thetaxidermist)<\/p>\n

X-rays confirm extinct thylacine skull<\/a><\/p>\n

An English taxidermist and collector was adamant he had snapped up a rare find \u2014 and now X-rays confirm he is the owner of a thylacine skull.<\/p>\n

Mr Cranfield, who owns a curiosity shop in Essex, recognised the online ‘fox’ listing ahead of the auction as incorrect.<\/p>\n

At the time, Mr Cranfield called the find “a discovery of a lifetime”, saying “it is the holy grail of natural history collecting”.<\/p>\n

Mr Stowe said while this second mounted thylacine head was still an exciting scientific discovery, he admitted the story was “not as fun”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mr Cranfield recognised the head as a thylacine after inspecting its teeth. (Supplied: James Cranfield)<\/p>\n

“[That] was the story that everyone wants, something that lay undiscovered for so long and sells for lots of money. It was such a fantastic story,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This one, it’s already been authenticated, it’s already been added to the database. It’s the only one to have come up to have been done properly.”<\/p>\n

The last-known thylacine died in captivity in Hobart on September 7, 1936, a date that has since been commemorated as World Threatened Species Day.<\/p>\n

Curiosity shop owner hopes more specimens are found<\/p>\n

Taking to Instagram, Mr Cranfield said the discovery of two thylacines in the 90th year since the marsupial was declared extinct was “incredible”.<\/p>\n

“I’m so pleased that when I trusted my gut on a ‘fox head’, and it subsequently made international news,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This has made this third discovery possible \u2026 and will hopefully mean that more specimens are discovered.”<\/p>\n

He said he was pleased his work to authenticate his find had helped to verify the latest specimen.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The last thylacine in captivity, at Beaumaris Zoo Hobart in 1933. (Credit: David Fleay)<\/p>\n

About 815 thylacine specimens from around the world have been recorded by the International Thylacine Specimen Database (ITSD), which range from a “microscopic slide” of tissue to a full mount.<\/p>\n

The UK holds the largest collection of thylacine specimens, mainly held in museums and universities.<\/p>\n

The latest thylacine head will go to auction on November 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but that’s not the case for one British auction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,2728,503229,63,29253,426102,87970,128,8539,2801,84570,503230,84569,5429,338],"class_list":["post-936485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-auction","tag-auctioneum","tag-australia","tag-head","tag-james-cranfield","tag-mounted","tag-science","tag-tas","tag-tasmania","tag-tasmanian-tiger","tag-taxitermy","tag-thylacine","tag-uk","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}