Palaeophis: a snake with thecodont dentition?

The specimen pictured at the left is of Palaeophis toliapicus from the London clay of the island of Sheppey, in Great Britain. The whole specimen is one that represents the only known complete skull of Paleophis. It is however owned by a private collector who has so far been unwilling to donate it to a public institution. As one can see, the dentitiion is rather unique for snakes, appearing to be thecodont (set in sockets) rather than pleurodont (adhered to the side of the jaw). This is particularly interesting because it bolsters the hypothesis of a mosasauroid (who also have thecodonty) origin of snakes, which is favored by Caldwell, Lee and Scanlon.
Since this is such a unique specimen and since the owner is simultaneously interested in having it studied and unwilling to part with it, I propose a compromise. If the owner were to donate the specimen to a public museum, it would receive an accession number and then could then be published on. The museum would subsiquently issue the fossil on a long term loan back to the collector so that he may keep it in his personal collection until deciding to have it stored in the museum or his eventual death. Either that, or someone should just find out how much money he wants for the damned thing and raise the funds to buy it from him. Of course, givin the fact that these collectors have found two articulate specimes in the last 10 years, it makes sence that someone aught to send out a field crew and try to find a specimen specifically for a museum.