Ancient meteorite goes unsold as dino dung sells:

Some dinosaur dung was snapped up at auction in New York even as a 4.5 billion year old meteorite which was supposed to top the sale went unsold.

The two chunks of 130-million-year-old coprolite (Jurassic-era), otherwise known as fossilized dinosaur dung, fetched $960 (more than double their maximum estimate) at Bonhams in New York on Wednesday.

However, the meteorite, on which a Chinese desert hiker habitually ate lunch before he discovered it was valuable, failed to meet the minimum reserve. Bonhams had expected it to sell for $2.25 million to $2.75 million.

The owner of the meteorite, Marvin Kilgore, the curator at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Meteorite Center, was mystified by the sale of the fossilized dung which is much more common than rocks that have fallen from space. “Some people want it on their shelves, I guess,” he said.

Motto: Crap sells.