Authenticity is often supposed to play an important role in natural history museums. Yet we know very little about how it affects the perception and appreciation of museum objects. In the present study, we examined children's perceptions of real fossils and replicas. We explored four potential explanations underlying the appreciation of authentic objects: physical appearances, ideational motivations (i.e. authentic objects are simply 'better'), associations and contagion (the belief that some quality or aspect of the object's history still inheres in the object). Seventy two children of 8-12 years old visiting a Dutch natural history museum were asked to rate the museum-worthiness of two replicas and two real dinosaur fossils in two states (whole object vs a small fragment). Results suggest that, although appearances and associations do play a role, the appreciation of real fossils is rooted in the contagious belief that previous contact of the object (e.g. with a living dinosaur) continues to act on the object after the physical contact has been severed. Altogether, our findings provide evidence that children look beyond superficial appearances and place great value on non-obvious features such as object history.