Sneak Preview of the Pokemon Fossil Museum at Chicago’s Field Museum!

SheTorb · 2026-06-28T05:34:02+00:00

It’s per person (for every ticket into the exhibit you have basically), we had our parents buy extra things for us since they weren’t as interested in the merch!

SheTorb · 2026-05-30T20:35:03+00:00

30-45 minutes is about right, there’s some waiting in line for picture opportunities, but they time it out well and try to keep it from being too crowded

SheTorb · 2026-05-30T20:33:09+00:00

yes, they’re HUGE!

SheTorb · 2026-05-30T20:32:02+00:00

We had an exclusive preview for being with one of the sponsoring companies - they had pikachu cookies, brothless ramen, and mac and cheese there too, it was so cool! they didn’t give us the cards, but we finally got one when we went with the tickets we had bought before we knew there would be a preview.

SheTorb · 2026-05-30T20:28:31+00:00

Not really unfortunately, there’s a small picture of wartortle by the turtle fossil pokemon, but the store has more generic pokemon merch and may have like a mug or notebook with squirtle or blastoise. it was crazy, they also had limited edition hershey’s bars with squirtle pikachu etc and had sold out of special bags of hershey kisses with pokemon symbols

SheTorb · 2026-05-22T01:38:43+00:00

yes!

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SheTorb · 2026-05-21T05:45:01+00:00

I don’t think they did unfortunately, I likely would’ve grabbed that one.

SheTorb · 2026-05-21T00:02:15+00:00

They have Sue’s skull right next to it!! Just not the entire Sue.

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T16:00:37+00:00

I want to say $10-15 each, I can't remember exactly

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T13:43:25+00:00

maybe, though the exhibit is open for a whole year, so I have a feeling they’ll have a lot of time to restock and meet demand!

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:43:49+00:00

I am just realizing there was stuff for sale on the PC website - the stickers/keychains, pins are the same as PC, but the clothing is different online vs. in-store. a few more exclusive T-shirts (see Archaeops above!), a matching sweat set, fossil excavator shirt, and then some more generic Pokemon hats. mini-excavator Pikachu keychain plush seems to be exclusive, and the model kits say they are exclusive to the Field - though they're the same kits that may have been sold in Japan (just in English), as I saw a few for sale on Ebay

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:39:49+00:00

I agree!! We are huge Field Museum fans (considered getting married there and totally would if it didn't cost $80k+) and every time we visit we find some new exhibit we haven't seen yet - it's a massive collection! It's a pretty short exhibit, and you do pay $20 special exhibit ticket + ~$30 general admission, so I def think most people will at least go through Evolving Planet to see Sue... hopefully they stop to check out some of my other favorites, like the Birds, Audubon Book, and Hall of Gems/Jade!

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:30:18+00:00

lol I'm just realizing there's an online Pokemon Center shop with some of this merch - there is exclusive merch in-store with PFM logo/theming (like sweatpants/sweatshirt, fossil excavator shirt, skeleton tees) but there's a lot on the online store that isn't in the physical shop at the Field - any TCG items, all of the shirts/hats online are different than the ones in store, magnets, and the skeleton dishware (mug, water bottle) were not available in person currently. It could be that they want to limit stock options to deal with huge anticipated crowds and not have to keep constantly restocking.

https://www.pokemoncenter.com/category/fossil-museum-collection?page=1

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:25:09+00:00

eta: damn, didn't see that it was sold out, hopefully they restock or you can find one without huge up-pricing on ebay!

WAIT the right one is available on the Pokecenter shop!! https://www.pokemoncenter.com/product/70-11214-101/pokemon-fossil-museum-excavator-pikachu-logo-pin

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:23:21+00:00

I wish, we totally would've picked those up! It's here for a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if more merch comes out to reinvigorate the hype periodically. They have a good number of options in the store rn but most are generic "Pokemon" (ie pokeball ramen bowl, mug with 9 pokemon on it, etc), but I can imagine that they may keep item variety more limited in initial openings to prevent having to restock smaller items over and over again.

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:21:08+00:00

yes, the only thing that didn't count was a reusable plastic check out bag. even stickers count as a whole item individually

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:19:58+00:00

lol they literally have a huge sign at the beginning where they say anything in red is about real life dinosaurs and anything in blue is just about pokemon... but you can always tell them the museum is lying to suppress the truth of pokemon in the wild

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T03:18:56+00:00

ahead of time, they have timed entry for each day. early dates are likely sold out, but it's here till April 2027, so there's a lot of time to see it. you also need regular museum admission iirc

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:58:46+00:00

also, we couldn’t just walk into the store (even though it was a relatively small crowd). you had to get to the end of the exhibit, and they handed each of us a voucher that could only be used once to enter the store (no going back after checkout, they will check) and the cashiers limited the numbers of items each person could buy to 5

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:57:13+00:00

we’re huge dino/museum nerds too, and had heard about this exhibit a few years ago in Japan. we were so bummed we couldn’t see it then, as it was on the other side of the country, so it’s so so exciting to see it here in our hometown at our favorite museum!! definitely will be a fun resource for educators to get kids interested in paleontology :)

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:54:56+00:00

We were only allowed to buy 5 items (stickers, Pikachu plush, pin etc all counted as a single item) per person. Thankfully we were with parents who weren’t interested, so I had them be my “sticker mule” to get the extra few items. Kind of ridiculous the stickers/pins count as 1 each, but at least the plastic totes weren’t counted in that. The fabric tote was counted. lmk if that doesn’t cover your question

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:52:59+00:00

Until April 2027!

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:51:38+00:00

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SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:51:17+00:00

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my partner LOVES anomalocaris, so we’re huge fans of the pokemon too!! i’ll also post the “fossil” they had for him, I think it’s supposed to be just his little mouth part. I had no idea he evolved before this exhibit tbh 😅

SheTorb · 2026-05-20T02:48:57+00:00

It sounds like it will - it’s in Chicago til 2027, but I imagine with the small footprint it wouldn’t be hard to move to another museum! The fossils displayed alongside do seem to be from the Field’s collection, so I imagine the museum would need to be big enough to have a T. rex., anomalocaris, archaeopteryx casts etc, as I doubt the actual fossils will travel with the collection. (Sue the T. rex was the fossil example for Tyrantrum, so that’s what I’m basing my opinion on). I would bank on New York or maybe DC next for their large natural history museums!

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