In a world without God...

[festive1]

Did the Smithsonian also mention where the real fossils that were used to make those replicas were located?

There are several examples of whole intact peices (80 to 85% of the skeletal structure accounted for) in various museums around the world, but everything there at the Smithsonian in DC at the time of my visit was contructed from a compliation of different examples or different dig sites. Most of that stuff are in underground vaults. They rotated different examples in their display cases. Outside of private collections real dino remains are never displayed like that.

Say you have a dozen full fossilized Stegasaurus skeletons found. Three thousand museums want one for their permanent display. What do you do?

I did not say that I said there were only a few Complete examples of dinosaurs period. Nothing like the stegasaurus in the picture.

Wait... So because paleontologists look at a stegosaurus skeleton with, lets say a missing rear left leg, and compare it with a different stegosaurus with a missing front right leg, they can't put the two together to get an idea of what the animal probably looked like??? You're right there aren't a lot of examples of complete fossilized dinos (it's hard to last, entirely complete for tens or hundreds of millions of years), but there are a lot of partial examples. Scientists can identify what dinosaur it was based on comparing skeletal structure, and put the various pieces together, forming a complete picture.
The Smithsonian has a basement used for storage, but mainly to work on the pieces going up to the exhibits. It also has an attic, but that's mainly offices. The majority of its collections reside in an off-site facility, not the basement. It's a big building, but not that big. They have specimen collections of almost every genus and species, both skeletal specimens as well as those stored in jars with preservatives (which are highly flammable, it would be a public health hazard to have them stored at the museum, light a match, museum goes BOOM!). That's a ton of animals. Then you get into the rock collections... Too much for the building on the Mall.