auction

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Chess Piece in a Drawer for 55 Years May Sell for $1.3M

Piece has been identified as one of the famous Lewis Chessmen from the Viking era

(Newser) - A chess piece purchased for $7.50 by an antiques dealer in Scotland in 1964 has been identified as one of the 900-year-old Lewis Chessmen, among the greatest artifacts of the Viking era. Sotheby's auction house said Monday the chess piece is expected to bring between $670,000 and...

Paper Plate That Once Held Kurt Cobain's Pizza Sells for $22K

Plate with Nirvana set list that Cobain scrawled on the back is 'a piece of history'

(Newser) - On April 23, 1990, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain enjoyed a slice of pre-show pizza, then scribbled a set list on the back of the paper plate the pizza once sat on. Someone has now purchased that plate, its black-marker scrawl intact, for a whole lot of money. Julien's Auctions...

Big Money for Monet at Record-Shattering Auction

French artist's painting goes for $110.7M, a world record for impressionist art

(Newser) - Like a fine wine, this Claude Monet piece just got better with age. Or more valuable, at any rate: An 1890 oil painting from the French artist's "Haystacks" (or "Meules") series sold Tuesday at Sotheby's for $110.7 million—the first time an impressionist painting...

Experts Roaring Over Rare T. Rex on eBay

Skeleton, likely of a juvenile, could be lost to science

(Newser) - What is touted as the only known fossil of a juvenile T. Rex is up for grabs on eBay—which came as quite a shock to the museum showcasing it. The 68 million-year-old skeleton found on private land in Montana in 2013 was on loan to the University of Kansas...

She Bought It for $100. Sotheby's Just Auctioned It Off

Unnamed buyer sees Buddha statue go for $2.1M

(Newser) - That garage sale in your neighborhood? Another reason to check it out: A Chinese statuette bought for $100 at just such a sale sold Wednesday at Sotheby's for an incredible $2.1 million, MarketWatch reports. The unnamed buyer appeared on the PBS show Antiques Roadshow in 2017 and said...

Meet Armando, the $1.4M Pigeon
Meet Armando,
the $1.4M Pigeon
Mar 20, 2019 7:25 AM CDT

Meet Armando, the $1.4M Pigeon

Racing bird likely to spend his next years making babies

(Newser) - Someone just paid $1.4 million for a pigeon—but not just any pigeon. Armando is the "best Belgian long-distance pigeon of all time," according to auction house Pipa , which oversaw a bidding war between two buyers from China, where pigeon racing is popular among the wealthy . The...

Charity's 'Hidden Treasure': Slightly Warped Beatles' Demo

Auction of 'Love Me Do' demo from 1962 closes Wednesday

(Newser) - In 1962, 250 demos of the Beatles' debut single were sent to radio stations. Nearly 60 years and 600 million album sales later, one of those turned up at a charity store operated by the British Heart Foundation, which will bring in at least $7,400 from its sale. "...

Harper Lee Groused About Town Trying to Exploit Her

'They are trying to turn Harper Lee into a tourist attraction like Graceland and Elvis Presley'

(Newser) - To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee railed against her Alabama hometown for trying to exploit her success, registering her complaints in a letter that helps explain later legal battles involving commercialization of her novel. The writer's bitter assessment of Monroeville comes in a three-page letter that's being...

'Inconceivably Smooth' Whisky Comes at a Price

Bottle of Macallan 1926 expected to fetch up to $923K at auction

(Newser) - Only 40 bottles of Macallan 1926 whisky were produced in 1986. Of those, 12 featured a label designed by Sir Peter Blake, one of the artists who created the cover art for The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, per Vox . The ultra-rare bottle could now...

Land Lincoln Bought From Cash-Strapped Dad Is Sold

The 30 acres go for $300K

(Newser) - A plot of Illinois farmland that President Abraham Lincoln once owned has sold at auction for $300,000. A retired farmer in the central Illinois city of Charleston sold his family's 590-acre farm, which includes the 30-acre plot once owned by the nation's 16th president. The Times-Courier and...

Relic of Legendary Celebrity Divorce to Be Auctioned

Black wool dress worn by Marilyn Monroe expected to fetch as much as $150K

(Newser) - The black dress that a distraught Marilyn Monroe wore to a 1954 press conference announcing her separation from baseball legend Joe DiMaggio less than a year after she married him is going up for auction. The simple wool dress with a zippered turtleneck front will be up for bidding starting...

Lock of Washington's Hair as 'Hefty' as Its Price

Strands of first president's hair sell for as much as a car

(Newser) - Someone just paid thousands of dollars per strand of George Washington's hair. A bidder nabbed the "hefty" lock of hair from America's first president for $35,764 in a Lelands auction that closed Friday, per USA Today . The gavel fell at more than three times the expected...

Penny Found in Cafeteria Change Is 'the Holy Grail'

Rare 1943 copper penny will sell for at least $120K

(Newser) - The year on the reddish penny 16-year-old Don Lutes Jr. spotted in the change he got at his high school cafeteria in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1947 stood out—1943. That year, amid the backdrop of World War II, the US Treasury minted zinc-coated steel pennies in an effort to conserve...

Man Buys Fish for $3.1M, Expresses Some Regret

For Kiyoshi Kimura, it's good publicity

(Newser) - At $3.1 million it's kinda pricey—but hey, it's bluefin tuna. The owner of a Japanese sushi chain made history Saturday by dishing out the highest-ever sum for a single fish at the new year's auction of a Tokyo fish market, CNBC reports. "I bought...

Einstein's 'God Letter' Fetches Ungodly Price

Christie's unloads document calling 'the word God' as 'product of human weakness' for nearly $3M

(Newser) - Albert Einstein didn't hold back in his famous 1954 "God letter," which fetched nearly $3 million at a Christie's auction Tuesday. "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still...

Einstein's 'God Letter' Expected to Fetch 7 Figures at Auction

1954 note declares religion as 'superstitition'

(Newser) - "The word God is for me nothing but the expression of and product of human weaknesses." Even now, more than 60 years later, Albert Einstein's words carry some shock value—which is why auction house Christie's expects to nab up to $1.5 million with the...

Looking for Holiday Gifts? These Oscars Are Up for Grabs

Statuettes for 'Mutiny on the Bounty,' 'Gentleman's Agreement' up for sale in rare auction

(Newser) - Two Academy Awards for best picture are going up for sale in a rare auction of Oscars. Auction house Profiles in History announced Monday that an Oscar awarded to Mutiny on the Bounty in 1936 and another given to Gentleman's Agreement in 1948 will go up for auction in...

He Bought the Painting for $180K. It Just Sold for $92M

Seattle Art Museum won't get Edward Hopper's 'Chop Suey' after all

(Newser) - When the gavel came down, an anonymous bidder was out $92 million and the art world was up in confidence. The scene unfolded Tuesday at Christie's in New York as work from the estate of late Seattle-area luxury-travel executive Barney Ebsworth was sold, per the Wall Street Journal . In...

Jewels of France's Last Queen Hit Auction Block

Ring, pearl necklaces to be sold Thursday in Switzerland

(Newser) - Let them eat their hearts out. Jewels that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the extravagant and doomed last queen of France, are set to hit the auction block as part of what Sotheby's calls "one of the most important royal jewellery collections ever to appear on the market....

Neil Armstrong's Spacecraft ID Fetches $465K

Memorabilia auction made $7.4M

(Newser) - Memorabilia that belonged to the first man to set foot on the moon has fetched more than $7.4 million at auction. Dallas-based Heritage Auctions says the item that sold for the highest price, $468,500, was Neil Armstrong's spacecraft ID plate from Apollo 11's lunar module Eagle....

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