About The Bones Vault
The Bones Vault supplies ethically sourced human and animal osteology, natural history specimens, and museum-grade replicas to collectors, educators, researchers, and institutions worldwide. We are based in France and ship internationally.
We exist because good specimens are hard to find and harder to verify. This page explains who we are, how we source, and what we will and will not do.
Why we started
Finding high-quality osteological material for scientific study or medical training is genuinely difficult. Universities, museums, and private researchers struggle to acquire specimens that are both authentic and properly documented. Much of what circulates is either plastic reproduction that fails to show real human variation or real material with no history attached to it at all.
We built The Bones Vault to close that gap. Our aim was simple: assemble a trusted network of sources, insist on documented origin, describe everything honestly, and make genuine specimens available to the people who will actually study and care for them.
We do not just sell bones. We preserve pieces of medical history that would otherwise be discarded or forgotten.
How we source
This is the part that matters most, so we will be specific.
Human osteology. Our human specimens are antique ex-medical teaching material. For most of medical history, students learned anatomy from real bone, and a substantial industry supplied prepared skulls and skeletons to medical and dental schools across Europe and North America. India banned the export of human remains in 1985, and China followed in 2008. No new medical osteology has been produced at scale since. What circulates today comes from retiring physicians, closing teaching collections, and long-held private holdings, and that is where our specimens come from.
We do not deal in exhumed or grave-recovered remains, looted archaeological material, protected Indigenous remains, or anything taken without consent. If we cannot establish that a specimen is lawful and ethically obtained, we do not buy it.
Animal specimens and taxidermy. These come from natural deaths, lawful management culls, the food chain, and antique or vintage pieces where the animal died long ago. Where a species is protected under CITES, we handle the documentation properly or we decline the piece.
Replicas. We stock museum-grade casts alongside real material because for many buyers a replica is genuinely the better choice: legal everywhere, durable enough for daily teaching, and far more affordable.
What we believe about provenance
A specimen without a history is a specimen with a problem.
We would rather tell you honestly that a piece has limited documentation than invent a story for it. We are wary of the printed “certificates of authenticity” that circulate in this trade, because a certificate is only as good as the person who signed it. What we offer instead is transparency: what we know about a specimen, how we know it, and what we do not know.
If you ask us where something came from, you will get a straight answer. If we cannot answer, we will say so.
What we sell
- Human osteology. Real ex-medical skulls, skeletons, and postcranial material, plus high-fidelity replicas including pathology specimens.
- Animal osteology. Comparative skulls and skeletons across mammals, from domestic cats to giraffes.
- Fossils and prehistoric material. Ammonites, megalodon teeth, mosasaur and Ice Age specimens, and woolly mammoth tusks.
- Taxidermy. Birds, mammals, big-game mounts, and antique pieces.
- Marine specimens and curiosities. Antique shells and cabinet-of-curiosities material.
Browse everything in the shop, or start with our collector’s guide to natural history specimens.
Who we work with
Our customers are medical and dental schools, university anatomy departments, museums, forensic and anthropology researchers, clinicians and physiotherapists, artists working from real anatomy, and private collectors who take the subject seriously.
If you are buying for an institution and need invoicing, purchase orders, or procurement documentation, contact us and we will set it up.
Our commitments to you
- Honest description. We photograph the actual specimen you will receive. Natural variation, age marks, and historic repairs are characteristics of real material, and we show them rather than hide them.
- Documented origin. We provide the documentation we hold and we do not overstate what we know.
- Legal compliance. We confirm we can lawfully ship to your destination before we take payment. Where we cannot, we say so and refund in full.
- Discretion. Every order ships in plain, unmarked packaging. Your purchase is private.
- Respect. These were living people and animals. We describe and handle them accordingly, and we expect the same of the collections they join.
Where to find us
The Bones Vault 521 Route De Charenton, Lieu Dit La Petite Prade 18200 Saint-Amand-Montrond, France
Email: Sales@thebonesvault.com Phone and WhatsApp: +33 7 55 52 22 71
We answer every genuine inquiry personally. If you are looking for something we do not list, ask. If we cannot help, we will tell you plainly, and often we can point you to someone who can.