AUCTION PREVIEW; NATURAL HISTORY ARTIFACTS GO ON THE BLOCK.

Byline: Amy Raisin Staff Writer

A 70-million-year-old dinosaur skull from a private collection goes on the auction block Sunday, with a preview starting today in Los Angeles.

After that, however, don't expect to see this rare piece soon, if ever again - a fact that upsets some people.

``As a scientist, I'm not in favor of selling fossils,'' said Luis Chiappe, associate curator of vertebrae and paleontology at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. ``The best place for them is in a museum where they can be researched, studied and then viewed by the public.''

David Herskowitz, director of the natural history department at Butterfield & Butterfield, said the auction is a chance for people to enjoy, at home, items that typically are found only in museums.

``People shouldn't be intimidated by natural history; anyone can own a piece of the earth's past. You can buy a beautiful piece of amber with a mosquito in it for as little as $500, and it's 55 million years old,'' he said.

The skull is among an array of natural history artifacts - from complete reptilian fossils to stuffed and mounted lions, antelope and an elephant's head - that will be auctioned at 1 p.m. Sunday at Butterfield & Butterfield galleries in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Of the 400 items up for auction, 100 are from the embattled and now defunct Fillmore Museum of Natural History in Ventura County.

The auction, which is open to the public, also will be on the Internet at: www.butterfields.com.

The intact skull comes from a protoceratops, believed to be the predecessor of the well-known, three-horned triceratops, according to the auction catalog.

It is exceptionally rare.

``The protoceratops is relatively common to Mongolia and China,'' Chiappe said. ``But definitely, dinosaur skulls are not very common, especially whole ones.''

The fossils, gems and meteorites up for auction have been culled from various places over time, according to Herskowitz, but the items from the Fillmore museum were secured by the auction house together. ``The Fillmore collection has about 700 specimens in all, but these (100) are the best of the best,'' he said.

While the entire auction features what Herskowitz calls ``the whole range of nature's art,'' the pieces from the museum are nearly all taxidermy, the prize of which is a mounted head of a large African bull elephant with natural skin and an up-turned trunk.

The taxidermist specimens are wide-ranging, featuring a 103-inch-tall shoulder mount of a giraffe and a full-bodied spotted hyena, both from Africa. The one nontaxidermist piece from the museum collection is a single wooly mammoth tooth.

The proceeds from the Fillmore museum pieces will be given to the city of Fillmore, as it was the city that funded the museum before charges of forgery left its director, Karl D. Anderson, pleading to a felony in December.

Herskowitz is enthusiastic about the plethora of meteorites, gems and minerals on the auction block, as well.

A partial slice of the moon, the Dar Al Gani 400, discovered in Libya, was catapulted from the lunar surface to earth after an immense asteroid collision. The catalogue estimates this piece at between $2,000 and $3,000.

Herskowitz said he tries to secure a Sunday for a natural history auction so children can attend the preview. ``I like the kids to come,'' he said, ``We encourage it.

Herskowitz expects the ``hard-core collectors'' to be at the auction, but he said he also hopes the curious will attend, citing the rare pieces on display.

``We have two 2-1/2-pound gold nuggets, which is pretty amazing,'' he said. He also noted a jade obelisk, more than 8 feet tall, carved by a single boulder of deep green Yukon nephrite in Canada.

All items up for auction will be previewed on Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. For more information on the auction, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo: (1) Of 400 natural-history artifacts up for auction, 100 are taxidermic specimens from the now-defunct Fillmore Museum of Natural History in Ventura County.

(2) A very rare, intact skull of a protoceratops is offered in Butterfield's catalog.

(3) This mounted cast of the dinosaur Utahraptor is one of the specimens to be sold to the highest bidder this weekend.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer