Why should only Ferraris and Rolex get the big bucks? A palm-sized lump of painted resin from Jurassic Park's opening mine scene just sold for $403,200, doubling its estimate after fourteen collectors fought over a bug that never existed.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, sells like nostalgia. Proof lies in the existence and success of auction houses over decades. Propstore brought nostalgia not on a platter but trapped in amber when it managed to sell Jurassic Park’s “mosquito in amber fossil” at its Summer Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction for a whopping $403,200. It appears to be the highest publicly reported price for a production prop from the original film, rather than merely the top result from the auction’s first day.

The iconic Jurassic Park mosquito-in-amber fossil sold for slightly more than double its $200,000 estimate after attracting 14 bids for the object that turned dinosaurs into a core memory for the entire millennial generation. The hammer went down at $320,000, with Propstore’s 26 per cent buyer’s premium adding $83,200 and taking the published final price to $403,200. It was a great day for Propstore, as day one alone generated $7.2 million from 296 film and television lots.

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Nostalgia truly ruled hearts and minds that day, as the runner-up to the amber prop was Wilson, Tom Hanks’s screen-matched volleyball from Cast Away, which made $378,000, just $25,200 less. As for the amber, the prop contained an insect designed to resemble a prehistoric mosquito suspended inside the resin. It measures 4 by 6 by 2.5 inches and is a palm-sized collectible that, funnily enough, costs more than many supercars. As for its presence in the movie, this isn’t John Hammond’s amber-topped walking cane but the specimen held up to the miners’ helmet lights during the early Mano de Dios mine sequence.

The prop was, in all probability, conceived and produced under the supervision of Jurassic Park property master Jerry Moss. It is not made from geological material but from resin cast around an embedded mosquito that was skilfully textured and coloured to resemble translucent amber, complete with pits, irregular edges and mineral-like paintwork. In the movie, it is this fossil that preserves the blood from which InGen recovers dinosaur DNA, establishing the premise that creates both the dinosaurs and the narrative. In short, if there were no mosquito-in-amber fossil, there would be no Jurassic Park.

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It’s been 33 years since the movie made its mark on an entire generation and went on to earn over $1.06 billion. The film won three Academy Awards, and now the auction winner has taken home the piece of film history that started it all.