Sawt Falasteen - First leather bag from T-Rex cells to be auctioned in Paris

Unveiled in the spring in Amsterdam, the bag was created from traces of collagen from the femur of a T‑Rex found in the US state of Montana 25 years ago.

"In recent years, we've developed techniques -- biotechnologies that allow us to instruct a cell culture to produce, so to speak, genuine T‑Rex skin in the laboratory," Iacopo Briano, a palaeontology expert associated with the sale, recently told AFP.

The auction house Drouot, where the bag is to be sold at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT), described it as "an object without precedent in the history of luxury" and a "scientific feat" that makes it possible to create leather "without any reliance on animal rearing", in a recent statement.

Briano noted the material differs from vegan leather, which is mostly made from plastic.

"In this case, it's derived from a cell culture, so it's 100 percent skin. And at the same time, it comes from an animal that went extinct 67 million years ago!" he said.

With no precedent to go on, Alexandre Giquello, whose auction house is organising the sale, explained they had to "come up with a price" that would reflect both the amount of investment required to create the bag and its rarity.

Giquello has estimated the value at between 300,000 and 500,000 euros ($346,000 to $576,000).

It is "a very, very large sum of money", Giquello told AFP.

"At the same time, it's one of a kind. And since rare things are expensive, that's the result," he added.

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST