Billionaire Buffett auctions off another lunch

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Last year's winning bid for lunch with legendary investor Warren Buffett topped $2.1 million, but given the economic turmoil, it's questionable this year's bidding will approach that level.

Yet Buffett has built a devoted following, as demonstrated by the crowd of 35,000 people at his recent Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, and he offers only one lunch per year.

The online bidding begins at $25,000 Sunday in a charity auction that benefits the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco. The bids will likely escalate significantly before the auction closes Friday evening at 10 p.m. EDT.

Glide's founder, Rev. Cecil Williams, said last year's big bid arrived just in time because demand for Glide's programs jumped roughly 20 percent in the past year with the recession. Glide relies on donations for most of its $17 million budget, so Williams is hoping for another big bid.

"We depend greatly on these people and their bidding," Williams said.
Buffett's late first wife, Susan, introduced the billionaire investor to Williams and the Glide Foundation. Buffett says he enjoys being able to help Glide with the lunch.

Buffett, who is Berkshire's chairman and chief executive, is primarily known for his investing success. Berkshire owns more than 60 subsidiaries including insurance, furniture, clothing, jewelry and candy companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms and has major investments in such companies such as Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.

But Buffett is also known for his philanthropy.
In 2006, he announced his long-term plan to give away the bulk of his roughly $36 billion fortune. Most of his shares of Berkshire stock will go to five charitable foundations, with the largest chunk going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The auction's winner and up to seven friends will lunch with Berkshire's chairman and chief executive. The owners of the Smith and Wollensky restaurant in New York contributed $10,000 to Glide and will again host the lunch.

Last year's winner, Zhao Danyang of the Hong Kong-based Pureheart China Growth Investment Fund, is scheduled to collect his prize by dining with Buffett on Wednesday.

"I am looking forward to enjoying lunch with Warren Buffett," Zhao said. "This is truly the chance of a lifetime."

Last year's winning bid on lunch with Buffett was the most expensive charity item eBay had ever sold.

Previously, the most expensive charity item ever sold on eBay was a letter from Democratic senators blasting conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh for using the phrase "phony soldiers" on his program. The letter signed by 41 senators sold for $2.1 million on eBay in October 2008.

The proceeds from Limbaugh's auction went to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which provides scholarships to children of Marines or federal law enforcement personnel who were killed while serving their country. And he matched the bid.

Buffett has been auctioning off lunches online for seven years but began auctioning the lunches for Glide off-line in 2000.

Lack of posts.

Readers will note the lack of posts over the last few months. That was because, as Coordinator of the London Green Party, I was deeply involved in the Euro election campaign.

We were pleased with the result. We held our seat which had been under attack. It was also pleasing that the fascist BNP fell back, in London, by over 50,000 votes on last year's election.

Nationally, the Green Party vote was up by 44% beating Labour in the South East and South West regions. Our vote in Brighton and Norwich were particularly exciting as it is in those areas that we expect to make breakthroughs in the next General Election.

Now back to auctions......

'Peanuts' strip sells for $17K at auction

LOS ANGELES, June 15 (UPI) -- A 1983 Charles Schulz "Peanuts" comic strip has sold for $17,080 at an entertainment memorabilia auction in Los Angeles, Bonhams & Butterfields said.

The pen and ink illustration, which shows Sally asking Charlie Brown to help her with a report on Charles Dickens, was the top-selling lot at Sunday's auction, the memorabilia dealer said.

The comic strip had been expected to bring between $10,000 and 15,000.

The sale also featured rare photos of Marilyn Monroe, in addition to a contract she signed; the handbag Estelle Getty carried as her character Sophia on "The Golden Girls," as well as the Emmy and Golden Globe awards she won for the role; and costumes from the private collection of actress Debbie Reynolds. Original works from The Peter Golding Collection of Rock 'n' Roll Art were also sold at the auction.
"It was a fun summer sale that showed the strength and continuing interest in animation, Hollywood and music memorabilia. We saw strong participation from around the globe," Margaret Barrett, department head of entertainment memorabilia at Bonhams & Butterfields, said in a statement.

Elderly left at risk by NHS bidding wars to find cheapest care with reverse auctions

Top story in Community Care mag's online round-up of today's newspapers:


Elderly left at risk by NHS bidding wars to find cheapest care with reverse auctions

An online auction system developed for councils to buy cheap wheelie bins and stationery is being used to buy end-of-life and dementia care for vulnerable elderly people.

The NHS in London has held a series of 30 “reverse e-auctions”, where bids are driven down instead of up, for £195 million worth of contracts for palliative and dementia care for patients leaving hospital.

Torture devices from 16th century for auction

By RICHARD PYLE –

NEW YORK (AP) — For sale soon: a variety of torture devices from the 16th century, including shame masks to enforce silence, a 14-foot table-like rack to stretch the victim's body, and a tongue tearer to punish blasphemers and heretics. Even an executioner's sword.

New York's Guernsey's auction house plans to auction the privately owned collection, with proceeds to go to Amnesty International and other organizations committed to preventing torture in today's world, said Guernsey's president, Arlan Ettinger. "That is clearly the seller's intent," he said.

Ettinger described the items Wednesday as possibly the world's most extensive collection of historical torture devices — some 252 items — plus rare books, documents and other related artifacts.

He declined to identify the owner, beyond saying it is a family living in the northeastern U.S., within three hours of New York. No date has been set for the auction.

Of German origin and acquired in the late 19th century by England's earl of Shrewsbury, the torture collection has been in private American hands since last publicly shown in 1893 in New York and at the Chicago World's Fair. Its owner for many years after that was Arne Coward, a Norwegian-born survivor of the Holocaust. His descendants are the present owners, Ettinger said.

On Nov. 26, 1893, an article in The New York Times described what was then a 1,300-item collection, noting that "thousands of people have gazed upon these terrible relics of a semi-barbarous age," all of which "have been in actual use."

As if to underscore the relevance of the exhibit to modern times, Ettinger said, the lead story on the front page of Wednesday's New York Times was headlined: "Torture Memos: Inquiry Suggests No Prosecutions."

The 252 devices include iron masks, boots, thumbscrews, foot squeezers, ropes, leg irons, chains, rings, manacles and "witch-catchers."

Notably absent is what the Times in 1893 called the "justly-celebrated iron maiden," a coffin-like case with deadly spikes on the inside. Ettinger said the fate of the iron maiden and other items is unknown, but they may have been lost in a fire that destroyed many buildings at the end of the Chicago world's fair.

The diabolical devices are a unique, but not unlikely, offering by the Manhattan-based auctioneer, noted for its sales of the offbeat.

Guernsey's auctioned off Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball in 1998 for a record $3 million, and it plans what Ettinger says will be the world's first "tennis auction" at this year's U.S. Open in New York, selling an array of sport-related items from antique rackets to trophies and historic contracts. "So it's not all painful," he said.

Ettinger said there was no way to tell what the torture collection is worth or how much it may fetch at auction. In the 1970s, he said, an obscure magazine "read only by historians" estimated its value at $3 million — about the same as Mark McGwire's home run ball.

Charity Auction.

Did a charity auction last night in Finsbury Town Hall.
Here are some of the results:

60 new classical & jazz CD's - £170.

Admission for two to a chocolate making workshop - £110.

Bottle of 2006 Didier Dagueneau Pouilly-Fume Silex - £140.

Two tickets for the Roundhouse theatre - £90.

Design Museum Patron membership - £120.

Tea for two at the House of Commons with Jeremy Corbyn - £140.

Two tickets to Sadler's Wells - £130.

Salsa Rapido course - £80.

A week's stay in a cottage in Wales £460.

This came this morning:

Dear Noel,

It was a pleasure to meet you last night. I want to say an enormous thank you for running the auction at our Supporters' Party. You were absolutely fantastic and it is thanks to your generosity and support that the auction was a great success. We are really pleased with the amount raised at auction and are still waiting to find out the total sum raised on the night.

Many thanks, and the best of luck for election preparations,

Harriet
The Medical Foundation for Torture Care.

Gallantry medal given to dog in Second World War sells for £24,000

The mongrel, called Rip, was awarded a Dickin Medal in 1945 after sniffing out dozens of air raid victims during the blitz.

The founder of veterinary charity PDSA, Maria Dickin, began awarding the medals in 1943 to recognise animals which showed "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty".


The Dickin Medal became known as the animal version of the Victoria Cross. Since its introduction 62 have been awarded to dogs, pigeons, horses and a cat.

Rip was found homeless and starving after an air raid in 1940.

An air raid warden working at Southill Street Air Raid Patrol in Poplar, east London, adopted the dog and Rip began sniffing out people trapped in the rubble.

The warden found the dog, which had no official training, was always on duty, never got in the way and was quick to locate casualties.

During the Blitz he helped to find and rescue more than 100 air raid victims.

It was partly due to Rip's success that towards the end of the war the authorities decided to train dogs officially to trace casualties.

Rip wore the Dickin Medal on his collar for the rest of his life.

He died in 1948 and was the first of 12 "supreme animal heroes" to be buried in the PDSA cemetery in Ilford, Essex.

His headstone reads: "Rip, D.M., 'We also serve', for the dog whose body lies here played his part in the Battle of Britain."

The winning bidder at the Spink auction in central London wanted to remain anonymous.

Realtor offers free divorce with home

HUELVA, Spain - A Spanish real estate company is offering a free divorce lawyer as an incentive to couples who purchase three-bedroom homes in Huelva province. Officials with Geimsa realtors said the deal is aimed at couples who have been postponing divorce because they can't afford new homes, Britain's The Daily Telegraph reported. "A divorce is very expensive," said Vanesa Contioso of Geimsa. "So we are offering new clients the free use of our lawyers to handle the process." The deal applies to married couples who purchase three-bedroom homes for at least $89,000 in Huelva province.

Hitler paintings sold for £95,589

LONDON (AFP) — A series of watercolours by Adolf Hitler were sold at a British auction house on Thursday for over 100,000 euros.

The 13 paintings, most of them landscapes and found in a garage earlier this year by the seller, went for 95,589 pounds at auctioneers Mullock's.

An apparent self-portrait showing a man with a side-parting sitting on a stone bridge, and signed with the initials A.H., sold for 10,000 pounds at the auction at Ludlow.

Richard Westwood-Brookes of the auctioneers -- who had earlier said the pictures "are hardly Picasso" -- said the final price, which included buyer's premium, was a surprise.

"I am very pleased. I thought they would go for between five and six thousand," he said.

The paintings date back to between 1908 and about 1914, when the former German leader was a young man trying to earn a living as an artist in Vienna.

"Unfortunately for the world, he was not accepted into the Vienna Academy, which was where he wanted to be," Westwood-Brookes said.

"Of course, if he had been accepted, then we would have known him today as an artist and not as an evil tyrant."

Westwood-Brookes said the seller bought them from someone who found them in 1945.

Many of the works are signed with the initials "A.H." The sale also included a collection of official Nazi magazines for schoolboys and women, featuring knitting patterns and recipes.

In 2006, 21 of Hitler's works were sold in Britain for 118,000 pounds.

Mafeking siege notes in mint condition sold in Bury St Edmunds

I find this article interesting as we have two copies of The Mafeking Gazette for sale in The Green Room. These single page newspapers ("Issued daily, shells permitting") were issued during the siege and must be quite rare. We have priced them at £50 each which must be a bargain


From the Antiques Trade Gazette:

Today Robert Baden-Powell is best known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement in 1908, but in the Edwardian era his name was synonymous with the Boer War, and specifically the 217 wretched days from October 1899 to May 1900.


The resistance of the town of Mafeking, an overnight stop on the vital rail link between the Cape Colony and mineral-rich Bechuanaland, has gone into legend as a great game of bluff, with the burying of fake landmines, erecting of non-existent barbed wire fences and moving of the small number of cannon around each night.

But equally important for the Commander of the Rhodesian forces was the continuation of daily life for the white English community of 1200 men, women and children as well as the 1250 armed men at his disposal. Under Baden-Powell’s command, the besieged population of Mafeking published a morale-boosting newspaper, made stamps for the town mail and – as normal commerce broke down – issued their own banknotes.

Siege notes are among the most tangible survivors of the Mafeking ordeal.

They were printed on ordinary writing paper in five denominations of one, two, three and ten shillings and one pound from January to March 1900 in an underground shelter. The town auctioneer Edward Ross, who penned one of the many accounts of the siege, aided in the process. He noted: “I had a little signboard made, Mafeking Mint. No Admission.”

Lacy Scott & Knight offered a dozen numbered Mafeking Siege notes in near-mint condition for sale in Bury St Edmunds on December 13. The vendor had acquired them in a house clearance in Bury in the 1970s.

The simple one-, two- and three-shilling notes took the form of vouchers to be used in the canteens for a daily ration of hard-baked oat bread and horse meat. These lower-value notes carry a facsimile signature for the Army Paymaster, Captain H. Greener.

For obvious reasons these notes are the most commonly encountered, although the three-shilling note survives in lesser numbers. While a one-shilling note dated February 1900, No.B6382 provided the lowest bid at £260, a three-shilling banknote, dated January 1900 and numbered A3628, commanded £1000.

In his memoirs, Baden-Powell recalled his personal input in the design of the ten-shilling and one-pound siege notes:
“The design for the one-pound note I drew on a boxwood block, made from a croquet mallet cut in half, and this I handed to a Mr Riesle, who had done wood engraving. But the result [two rudimentary images of soldiers with cannon] was not satisfactory from the artistic point of view, so we used that as a ten-shilling note and I drew another design which was photographed for the pound note.”

Several examples of both higher denomination notes were seen at LS&K. Early issues of the ten-shilling note include a typographical error: Issued by authority of Col R.S.S. Baden-Powell, Comman[d]ing Frontier Forces.

Examples sold here for up to £750 each: a later issue, No.6354, with the error corrected, sold at £350.

The blue one-pound siege note, complete with Baden-Powell’s competent sketch of Rhodesian troops under the Union flag, was signed in ink by Robert Bradshaw Clarke Urry, the manager of the Mafeking branch of the Standard Bank of South Africa, and by Paymaster Greener who gave each issue of notes authority by depositing a cheque of an equivalent amount into the Standard Bank. The examples here, all in superb condition, sold for up to £1600.

In total, more than £5228 in notes and coupons was issued during the siege. However, little more than £638 worth of coupons were ever redeemed. The rest were kept as souvenirs or lost, and redemption of the notes ceased in September 1908.

Mr Ross was a prophetic fellow. “This note business is going to be a good thing for the Government as I am sure they will be worth much more than face value as curios after the siege, and people are collecting as many as they can get hold of now, to make money afterwards,” he wrote at the time.

The degree of his prescience can be judged from the fact that the face value of the 16 notes sold last month was £6 14s. The total for the 16 lots was £12,500, some 1865 times the original sum.

By Roland Arkell

Hitler’s first self-portrait up for auction

A self-portrait of Adolf Hitler is to go under the hammer.

The Nazi leader is hardly recognizable with no moustache in the picture which is thought to be the first he ever painted.

But he identifies himself with the initials AH by his head.

The amateurish painting is among 13 works by the Nazi dictator, created back in 1910 when he was just 21.

The small portrait has no nose or mouth, but the side parting hairstyle is unmistakable.

All the pictures were found in Essen, Germany, in 1945 by Company Sergeant Major Willie J McKenna. He sold them to the current unnamed owner, who kept them hidden for decades.

The pictures are expected to fetch tens of thousands of pounds at Ludlow Racecourse, Shrops, on April 23.

“There’s absolutely nothing in them to suggest the monster he became. But one can see why he didn’t make it as an artist,” The Sun quoted Richard Westwood-Brookes of Mullock’s auctioneers, as saying.

Indian pearl carpet fetches $5.5 mln at Doha auction

www.chinaview.cn

NEW DELHI, March 21 (Xinhua) -- An unidentified buyer bought the famous Indian pearl Baroda carpet, which is regarded as an Indian national heritage, for 5.48 million U.S. dollars at Sotheby's auction in Doha, Qatar, this week, the official website of the auction house said Saturday.

Encrusted with 2.2 million Basra pearls, and weighing 30,000 carats, the Baroda pearl carpet was commissioned in 1865 by BarodaKing Khande Rao Gaekwad, as a gift for the Mausoleum of Prophet Mohammed at Medina.

Until 1947, the year of India's independence, Baroda was a city kingdom located in today's western India state of Gujarat.

The silk carpet also has three large diamond-filled rose designs in silvered gold, besides pearls. The carpet has been a part of the king's family collection.

Another piece of Indian collection by London-based Anish Kapoor, a painted stainless steel sculpture, fetched 974,000 U.S. dollars at the auction this week, said the website.

The Baroda pearl carpet already commanded a price of 5 million U.S. dollars before being auctioned.

This comes weeks after some items belonging to India's modern founding father Mahatma Gandhi were auctioned in New York.

In 1943, the then King of Baroda, Sir Pratap Sinh Gaekwad, married a woman known as Sita Devi, who took up her residence in Europe and soon, most of the Baroda treasures were transferred to her mansions in Monte Carlo in Monaco neighboring southern France.

In 1947, Baroda was merged with India. The Indian government deposed Gaekwad and forced him to return to India some of the most precious items, but the pearl carpet continued to be in the possession of Sita Devi.

Super rare Superman comic sells for super auction: $317,200 for Action Comics #1

BY Caitlin Millat
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Saturday, March 14th 2009, 5:02 PM

A rare copy of Action Comics #1 has been sold at an Internet auction for $317,200.

Maybe they should call him Man of Gold.

Superman proved to be super-expensive when a rare copy of the first comic book featuring him sold late Friday for $317,200 in an Internet auction.

The drummer for the rock band System of a Down, John Dolmayan of rock band, placed the winning bid for the 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, the first comic to feature Clark Kent and his heroic alter ego.

Dolmayan, a collector and a dealer of vintage comic books, reportedly bought the inaugural Superman issue for a client.

Auction site ComicConnect said the book's previous owner purchased it in 1950 at a secondhand store for a measly 35 cents.

"It's the Holy Grail of comic books," expert Stephen Fishler said when the book went up for auction in late February.

Only 100 copies of the comic exist worldwide - and this edition is one of the few that remain untouched, in mint condition.

The $317,200 bid is among the highest any comic book has ever gotten at auction

Rare Roy Rogers guitar for auction.

(Reuters) - A rare guitar owned by singing cowboy and actor Roy Rogers is hitting the auction block next month, the first of its kind ever to be offered at auction, Christie's said on Wednesday.

The C.F. Martin OM-45 Deluxe guitar is one of only 15 made by the Nazareth, Pennsylvania, company founded by a German immigrant in the 1830s.

Only 14 were believed to have been manufactured in 1930 but recent research brought to light a 15th, owned by Rogers since 1933 and the very first one produced.

The auction house expects the OM (Orchestra Model) guitar, last played by Rogers and in its original, unrestored state, to sell for $150,000 to $250,000 when it is offered along with three more of Rogers's guitars on April 3.

The guitars are being sold by The Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri.
"Back in 1933 performing cowboys started going for the hand-tooled boots and handmade shirts, and Roy went out and purchased the flashiest guitar he could find," said Kerry Keane, Christie's musical instruments department head and specialist for the sale.

"That was this guitar," which still bears the green sash cord Rogers attached and a gold star sticker from a flour promotion campaign Rogers did in the mid-1930s. "It has all the sparkle and twang a Hollywood cowboy could ever want."

Rogers, who died in 1998, was a two-time inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame and starred in over 100 films plus a popular television show.

Other highlights of the sale include a Gennaro Gagliano violoncello circa 1765, which is expected to fetch $200,000 to $300,000, and a Gibson Inc. Les Paul solid body electric guitar estimated at $150,000 to $250,000.

A hush as Lot No. 364 came up for sale

From The Hindu

The price continued to rise until Bedi made the winning bid, and applause broke out

New York: A sudden hush descends on the tiny room in the Antiquorum Auctioneers auction house in Manhattan as soon as Lot No. 364 — Mahatma Gandhi’s five prized personal items — come up for sale.

It was shortly after 3 p.m. on Thursday (0130 IST Friday) and a slide show of Gandhiji was displayed with a recording of piano music and one of the most contentious auctions that set off an international tempest, whose outcome was awaited with bated breath in India, began.

The bidders included a dozen people in the room, 30 people on the phone, and about two dozen people who submitted written bids. For the first time, the auction house required bidders to submit bank references. Before the auction began, 60 bidders had registered, from Australia, Germany, Austria, India, Canada and the U.S., among other countries.

In comparison, there were only six registered bidders in October for a watch belonging to Albert Einstein, which sold for almost $600,000. The auction room at 595 Madison Avenue was thick with finely dressed bidders, a throng of journalists and a lawyer for the owner of Gandhiji’s memorabilia James Otis, who was trying to stop the auction after having second thoughts.

The bidders a mix of Indian-born business executives and die-hard timepiece collectors began filling a fifth-floor room of the auction house, which specialises in watches. In the end, after days of controversy that reverberated in India, the lot sold for $1.8 million to Vijay Mallya, Indian liquor and airline magnate.

The controversy over the auction drew comparisons to an incident at Christies in Paris last month in which a Chinese collector said he was the winning bidder for Qing Dynasty bronze sculptures but refused to pay, saying he was sabotaging the auction because the works had been looted in the 19th century. While the Gandhi items were believed to have been legitimately obtained, both sales pitted auction houses against governments that could ultimately do little more than protest.

The five objects took up half of a glass display case, atop a yellowed copy of the Jan. 30, 1948, issue of an Ohio newspaper, The Piqua Daily Call, with the headline: “Gandhi Shot and Killed Today.”

Himadri Roy, 72, an engineer and real estate investor who had flown in from Montreal, had tears in his eyes as he examined the case and recalled meeting Gandhiji as a 10-year-old in India. For the first time, the auction house required bidders to submit bank references. “We are concerned about what happened at Christies,” Antiquorums chairman Robert Maron was quoted by New York Times as having said. At the point when the bidding reached one million dollars, the contest essentially narrowed to Tony Bedi, representing Mr. Mallya, and Arlan Ettinger, the president of Guernseys auction house, representing former Indian cricketer Dilip Doshi, who was said to be interested in donating the items to the Indian government.

The price continued to rise until Mr. Bedi made the winning bid, and the room burst into applause.

The proceedings were nearly disrupted about 2:30 p.m. when Mr. Otis’ lawyer Ravi Batra entered the auction house to attempt to stop the sale.

Julien Schaerer, an official of the auction house, which would not disclose its commission, said Mr. Otis had entered a legally binding agreement to sell the items.

Employees escorted Mr. Batra from the building. He later said that Mr. Otis did not plan to challenge the sale if Mr. Mallya agreed to turn the items over to the Indian government, although it was not immediately clear whether he would do so.

Mr. Maron said he was delighted that the items would return to India for public viewing. “We had hoped that would be the result,” he said.

Mr. Mallya’s move came as a total surprise as his name was never mentioned among those who might bid for the items. The bid on the floor was made by Mr. Bedi and it was not until the auction was over that the liquor baron’s name surfaced.

One of the bidders was a South African, who was very much interested in the items. None of the bidders was identified. And the bid increased so fast that it was impossible to keep track.

Within three minutes, the bid had reached $1 million. After that it slowed down a bit but picked pace again. Once it reached $1.8 million, the person auctioning the items waited for quite a while before bringing down the hammer.

Originally, Antiquorum Auctioneers had fixed the base price of the items between $20,000 and $30,000 but the media hype and interest shown by the Indian government helped to shoot up the prices. The bid itself began around $300,000.

For hours before the auction started, Indian American leaders had consultations on the strategy at the Indian Consulate here with top Indian diplomats including Consul General Prabhu Dayal.

Talking to reporters, Sant Singh Chatwal, hotelier and community leader who took the lead in the negotiations, said it was decided that Indians would not bid against one another as it would have sent up the price.

It was decided that Mr. Mallya would bid for the items, Mr. Chatwal said, adding he had been in touch with him throughout.

Mr. Chatwal too had shown interest in bidding for the items and repeatedly asserted that Indian Americans would not allow them to be bought by a private collector.

During the auction process, Mr. Chatwal and Mr. Bedi were sitting side by side and were seen consulting often. — PTI

Einstein doctorate up for auction

The doctorate certificate that Albert Einstein obtained from the University of Zurich in 1906 will come up for auction in June, auctioneers Fischer Galerie said on Friday.

An honorary doctorate certificate awarded to the physicist by the University of Geneva in 1909 will also come under the hammer, the Lucerne-based auctioneer said.

Einstein, who revolutionised physics, was awarded the doctorate of philosophy by the University of Zurich's mathematics and natural sciences department after finishing his doctoral thesis titled "A new determination of molecular dimensions" which explains how the size of atoms could be determined.

During the same year, he came up with the formula for which he is best known -- e=mc2.

Three years later, the University of Geneva awarded him a honorary doctorate in physical sciences, noting that he had become "well worthy" of it.

He was in Bern in 1905 when he wrote the articles that formed the basis of his relativity theory of motion,.

Einstein was born in Germany in 1879 and died in the United States in 1955.

The auction would be held June 10 to 12, with a viewing scheduled between May 30 and June 7.

Superman No.1 comic for auction.

After being hidden away for years, a copy of the original "Superman and Friends" comic book will make a comeback -- at a price of about $400,000, a comic expert said Thursday.

Starting Friday, comic book collectors and Superman fans will have the opportunity to bid on a comic classic -- an "unrestored" copy of Action Comics No. 1, said Stephen Fishler, owner of Comic Connect, an online liaison between comic book buyers and sellers. The book's owner is not being identified.
The auction is attracting a lot of interest.
"One bidder wanted to trade his Ferrari for the comic book," as part of an under-the-table deal, Fishler joked. But he said the auction will remain public. "I couldn't see myself trading in my Toyota Prius" -- even for a $375,000 car.
Why is this comic book so unique?
"Of the 100 existing copies, 80 percent have been restored, but people want an untouched copy," Fishler said. The book is listed in "fine" condition, a six on the 10-point rating scale.
"It's the Holy Grail of comic books," Fishler said.
Co-created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the comic book first appeared on newsstands for 10 cents a copy in June 1938.
Nearly 12 years later, a young boy on the West Coast found himself in a secondhand book store, where he persuaded his dad to loan him 35 cents to buy the comic book.
Until 1966, the owner forgot about the book, which was hidden in his mother's basement. Since then, he's been holding onto it, hoping to see it increase in value, Fishler said. He has not been disappointed.
"There has been a lot of interest shown on the book in the collectibles market," said Fishler, who predicted the comic book will sell for about $400,000. But, he added, no minimum price has been set for the auction, so "whatever it sells for, it sells for.
"I've known Action Comics to sell for around $750,000," comic book sales associate Bill Peterson said. "I don't have any intention on making a bid, but I know people who don't mind dropping several thousand for a classic comic."
The comic book marked the first appearances of Lois Lane, Giovanni "John" Zatara and, of course, Superman. The book is in high demand because "there was no such thing as a superhero before Superman. It spawned everything that came after -- like Batman and Spider-Man," Fishler said.
Even during the current economic downturn, Fishler expects the book to do well.
Those who can afford to bid, he said, "would ordinarily put money into the stock market. But that's a shaky proposition." These days, the comic book may even be a better investment than putting money into a CD or a bond, Fishler speculated.
Because the book was published at the close of the Great Depression, it contains advertisements that may appear quaint and quirky to 21st century readers. For only $1.25, one could buy a blonde wig, a live chameleon, a whoopee cushion, a Bible "the size of a postage stamp" or hypnosis lessons.
"Some books seem to go in and out of fashion," reads the auction blurb at comicconnect.com. But "Action Comics No. 1 will never be one of those books."

Cave home for sale on eBay.

A Missouri family says the credit crunch has forced them to put up for sale the 17,000-square-foot home they created in a cave.

Curt Sleeper told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he and his family, like so many others,are victims of the credit crunch. He has been unable to obtain mortgage refinancing for the cave. "We don't want to move," he said. "But we need to protect our equity. We put everything we had into this home." So the Sleepers have listed the cave on eBay.

The couple, who have two children and are expecting a third, bought the cave, a former mine, five years ago.

In the late 1950s, it had been converted to a roller rink and night club called Caveland, where Tina Turner and other major stars played.

The Sleepers lived in tents for several years while they worked on the cave, calling their temporary quarters Tentworld.

The family says the cave in Festus, about 30 miles south of St. Louis, is peaceful, considering that it is only a few hundred feet from major highways and below a subdivision. It is located in a small box canyon with a bog and an assortment of wildlife.

Lincoln speech breaks auction record.

A handwritten manuscript of a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 sold for $3.44 million at an auction on Thursday, the highest price paid at an auction for an American historical document, The Associated Press reported.

The speech, delivered by Lincoln at the White House after his re-election, was sold by Christie’s in New York to an anonymous telephone bidder. The price beat the previous record of $3.40 million, set last year for a letter written by Lincoln in 1864.

The speech manuscript was put up for sale by the Southworth Library Association in Dryden, N.Y., which plans to use the proceeds to build a new wing.

Gandhi's specs for auction

Mahatma Gandhi's distinctive wire-frame eyeglasses, a pair of worn leather sandals and an inexpensive pocket watch are going on the auction block in New York City.

Antiquorum Auctioneers says the auction of Gandhi's belongings is historic because the leader of India's independence movement didn't have many possessions.

All the items, including a simple brass bowl and plate, will be sold as a single lot during the March 4-5 sale, with a low bid ranging from $20,000 to $30,000.

The auction house says that in the last few days it has received inquiries from prospective buyers around the globe. The items belonged to a private American collector who obtained them from the Gandhi family's heirs.

Abandoned car makes $4.4m in auction

A car abandoned in a garage for half a century sold at an auction in Paris for euro3.4 million (about $4.4 million) Friday.

The 1937 Bugatti Type 57S went under the hammer at Bonhams' Retromobile car show and sale in Paris. It was sold on behalf of the family of its last owner, Dr Harold Carr.

The orthopedic surgeon drove the car for several years, but in the early 1960s it was parked in his garage in Gosforth, near Newcastle in northern England, where it remained for forty years until his death in 2007.

Bugatti once represented the height of motoring achievement. The supercar was so ahead of its time it could go up to 130 mph (209 kph) when most other cars topped out about 50 mph (80 kph).

This particular car is especially valuable because it was originally owned by Earl Howe, a prominent British race car driver, and because its original equipment is intact, so it can restored without relying on replacement parts.
Bonham's said a European collector bought the car.

U.S. Consulate Mistakenly Auctions Secret Files in Jerusalem

U.S. Consulate Mistakenly Sells Secret Files in Jerusalem

Hundreds of files — with social security numbers, bank account numbers and other sensitive U.S. government information — were found in a filing cabinet purchased from the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem through a local auction.

The consulate was unaware of the missing files until FOX News contacted U.S. officials. Initially they said that no filing cabinets were sold in the auction, but later they acknowledged the sale. The State Department has now launched an investigation.

The files contained social security numbers of U.S. Marines and State Department employees stationed in Israel, and documentation of how U.S. government money is allocated to fund sensitive programs in the region. Among the papers was also a report labeled "secret" that documented an encounter a U.S. Marine had with an Israeli woman at a bar in Jerusalem.

Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who spent years working in the Middle East, calls the incident a serious security failure.

"It's a major breach because the government, at all cost, wants to keep these records out of foreign hands, whether Israeli or any other country," Baer says. "We spy on Israel; they spy on us. The Marines are vulnerable because they are young, and they are inevitably single. You're looking at what is called a honey trap. You run a girl into an employee. You actually get him to fall in love and then you get them to break the security clearance and go and steal documents or whatever."

The head of security at the U.S. consulate approached Paula (the buyer) asking for the documents to be returned. When she refused to turn them in the consulate asked Israeli police to intervene. After she was threatened with criminal charges, she returned the files, but not before FOX News had a thorough look at them.

The American consulate in Jerusalem routinely holds furniture auctions to dispose of unwanted items. The woman purchased the cabinets in December of 2005 but decided to come forward with the files after hearing about a Sept. 22, 2008 incident in which a Palestinian teenager crashed a BMW into a group of Israeli soldiers.

Paula, whose son's unit was the one that was struck by the car, says she was angered when she heard that the car was purchased from an auction held by the consulate.
U.S. officials insist the car was never linked to them. A FOX News investigation also found there was no connection.

Paula, an Israeli who also holds U.S. citizenship, says she wanted to expose the incident because her loyalty is to the state of Israel.

Naked Madonna photo for auction.

The 30-year old nude photo of Madonna that earned her a meagre $25 modelling fee is expected to sell for over $10,000 when it goes to auction next month.

The picture of the 50-year-old hitmaker, is one of six shots taken by photographer Lee Friedlander that were sold to Playboy magazine, whose editors published the snap in 1985.

Madonna posed for the full frontal at the age of 20 after responding to Friedlander's newspaper ad seeking a nude model in 1979 during her time as a struggling dancer in New York.

Christie's auction house will put the set, including one semi-clothed photo captured by Helmut Newton, on the auction block on February 12.

To thwart the sale of Utah wilderness to big oil, a student bid for it at auction - and won

Tim DeChristopher makes an unlikely landowner: the gangly economics student, dressed in combat trousers and a hoodie, doesn’t look as though he has ever owned anything more valuable than an iPod. As of last Friday, though, DeChristopher became the proud owner of 22,500 acres of Red Rock Desert – a magnificent symbol of the American Wild West. He hopes the $45,000 (£30,000) cheque he has just written will serve as a deposit on his chunk of Utah desert and will keep him out of prison – for now.

It’s not unusual to hear of bidders at an auction getting carried away and going over the budget they set themselves, but few can have done so in as spectacular a way as DeChristopher, an environmental enthusiast who intended to raise a gentle protest at the sale of parcels of desert land for exploration by oil and gas companies and ended up spending $1.8m (£1.2m). “I won my first bid for a parcel of land – about 220 acres – for $495. After the first rush of adrenaline, I started to relax; I knew there was no going back,” he says.

Selling the land at the auction, three weeks ago, was to be one of the last decisive acts of the George Bush administration. A row had been rumbling over the sale for some time: the American government intended to sell off 360,000 acres – on 10-year leases – for exploration but had been forced to reduce that to 150,000 acres after a vocal campaign spearheaded by the actor Robert Redford, who lives in Utah. “These lands are not Bush and Cheney’s; these are our lands,” Redford said. “How would you feel if you had an heirloom in your family that was centuries old and someone came in when you were not looking and took it away from you?”

On the day of the auction, DeChristopher was sitting his economics finals at the University of Utah. He had intended to wander down to the auction later in the day to see what was going on but was struck by one of the questions in his exam paper: “In the auction that’s happening today, if there are only oil and gas men in the room bidding on these parcels, is the final cost going to reflect the true value of developing oil?”

“The answer they were looking for was: no, it’s not,” says DeChristopher, “because there are a lot of extra costs that the rest of us pay for the development of oil – things like healthcare costs that come from pollution and the cost of mitigating climate change.”

The question was still in his mind as he arrived at the Bureau of Land Management building in Salt Lake City. About 100 protesters were marching back and forth, but there was a feeling of resignation. “All these people were holding their signs but knew it wasn’t making any difference,” says DeChristopher.

“I’d been to environmental protests before. I’ve waved signs and marched, written letters, signed petitions and spoken to my congressmen. None of it ever made any difference. I knew I had to make more of a nuisance of myself than that.”

He decided to go inside and cause a bit of disruption. Instead, something unexpected happened. An official approached him and said: “Hi, are you here for the auction?” He thought for a second. “Er, yes. I am.”

“Are you a bidder?” she asked, smiling. “Well, er, yes I am.”

DeChristopher found himself handing over his driving licence and a minute later had signed up. He took his bidding paddle, number 70, and sat down.

Remembering the exam question, he knew he could drive up the prices simply by bidding. “I sat there for about half an hour grappling with my conscience,” he says. “I knew that if I were to make a bid, there would be serious consequences. I was cautious at first – I just wanted to push up the cost of the land parcels. I didn’t want to win a bid.”

Inevitably, the scruffy, shaven-headed student began to attract attention. “I definitely stood out,” he says. “Everyone else in the room seemed to know each other, and couldn’t figure out who this kid was who was driving up the prices.”

Then it occurred to him that though his bids were making the land more expensive, they were still falling into the hands of the oil companies and would be plundered and laid to waste. If he bought some land, he could protect it from development. Never mind the fact that he didn’t have a cent to pay for it – he’d think about that later.

The lots got bigger and more expensive. “I ended up winning 12 in a row.” In all, 22,500 acres.

When the auctioneer called a five-minute break, DeChristopher knew the game was up. He was taken into custody and questioned by the bureau’s law enforcement agents and local police. “I told them why I felt I had to take serious action. It sounds like an intimidating situation but I felt they were quite sympathetic,” he says.

Four hours later he was released and gave an impromptu press conference. Since then, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

He set up a website and donations began to pour in – mostly just $10 or $20 – enabling him to meet the $45,000 deposit on the land that was required last week. As he bought 10-year leases, he argues he should be given 10 years to pay them off, and he is confident he will be able to.

Despite his high-profile opposition to the sale, DeChristopher has had no contact with Redford. He suspects this is because Redford belongs to one of America’s biggest environmental groups – the kind he has reservations about. “Their basic approach is that environmentalists should sign petitions and send donations. They want to make change one concession at a time, which gives them a seat at the table of power.”

If DeChristopher can’t come up with the balance in the next few months he could be charged with fraud and face up to three years in prison. He has resigned himself to the fact that the US attorney will probably press charges, but he has disrupted the sale for long enough to see Barack Obama take office – and that might make all the difference to what happens next.

“It’s still unclear how the new administration will deal with this,” he says. “I can only hope that President Obama follows through on his promise for a transparent government.”

Until then, he vows to keep developers off the land, even if he has to do it from a prison cell.

To support DeChristopher, visit www.bidder70.org

Single tuna sold for over $100,000 in auction.

Two sushi bar owners paid more than $100,000 for a Japanese bluefin tuna at a Tokyo fish auction Monday, about ten times the average price and the highest in nearly a decade, market officials said.

The 282-pound premium tuna caught off the northern coast of Oma fetched 9.63 million yen ($104,700), the highest since 2001, when another Japanese bluefin tuna brought an all-time record of 20 million yen, market official Takashi Yoshida said.

Yoshida said the extravagant purchase - about $370 per pound ($817 per kilogram) - went to a Hong Kong sushi bar owner and his Japanese competitor who reached a peaceful settlement to share the big fish. The Hong Kong buyer also paid the highest price at last year's new year event at Tokyo's Tsukiji market, the world's largest fish seller, which holds near-daily auctions.

Typical tuna prices at Tokyo fish markets are less than $25 per pound ($55 per kilogram). But bluefin tuna is considered by gourmets to be the best, and when sliced up into small pieces and served on rice it goes for very high prices in restaurants.

Premium fish - sometimes sliced up while the customers watch - also have advertising value, underscoring a restaurant's quality, like a rare wine.

Thousands of tuna were auctioned at Monday's festive new year sale, which often brings unusually high prices.

"It was the best tuna of the day, but the price shot up because of the shortage of domestic bluefin," Yoshida said, citing rough weather at the end of December. Buyers vied for only three Oma bluefin tuna Monday, compared to 41 last year.

A similar size imported bluefin caught off the eastern United States sold for 1.42 million yen ($15,400) in Monday's auction.

Due to growing concerns over the impact of commercial fishing on the bluefin variety's survival, members of international tuna conservation organizations, including Japan, have agreed to cut their bluefin catch quota for 2009 by 20 percent to 22,000 tons.

Big Bopper’s casket for auction

In what has to be the weirdest auction on ebay yet, you will be able to buy the casket that the Big Bopper was buried in.

The family of the late 1950s pop star JP “The Big Bopper” Richardson is going to auction his casket on eBay sometime next week some forty eight years after he died in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.

Sadly, or happily whichever way you look at it, the corpse won’t be sold with the casket.

The Big Bopper’s steel casket was exhumed last year from his original grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont Texas, so it could be moved to a more visible location with a life-size statue and historic marker.

The exhumed casket is apparently in ok condition after being buried for 48 years.

It has minor rust spots and a white lime stain where several inches of water once leaked into the surrounding vault, but according to the family there was no evidence water had ever seeped into the casket itself.

Apparently the son, Jay Richardson is going to use the money to finance a tribute show.

Used tissue makes £3,500 in auction.

A tissue used by Scarlett Johansson has been sold for over £3,000.

The actress-turned-singer put the disposable handkerchief up for sale after using it on Jay Leno's talk show 'Tonight', after claiming she caught the cold that induced her sneezing session from actor Samuel L Jackson.

The tissue was sold on eBay for $5,300 (£3,500), with the money raised going to hunger charity USA Harvest.

Michael Jackson to auction thousands of possessions

The glittery glove famously worn by former pop idol Michael Jackson in his 1983 video for the hit song ‘Billie Jean’ is up for sale. Sources say that the glove will be auctioned off in April, together with more than 2,000 items from the ‘Neverland Ranch,’ Jackson’s home for over 15 years, until he abandoned in the aftermath of his 2005 acquittal on charges that he molested a young male visitor there.

According to celebrity memorabilia specialist Julien’s Auctions,the sale will also include the entry gates to Neverland Ranch as well many of the amusement and arcade devices that Jackson installed at Neverland to make his own private amusement park. In addition to the collection of memorabilia from Jackson’s own career the auction will also feature numerous fine art pieces and other pop culture memorabilia.

The auction came just weeks after the financially-troubled Jackson sold Neverland to a company that owned the mortgage on the property and which now plans to redevelop the 1,100 hectare ranch. Jackson’s possessions will be on display from February onwards in a highlights tour that according to Julien’s will visit major cities worldwide.

Green Party eBay auction

I'm writing to introduce you to the first ever London Green Party online auction. The items have all been donated by Green Party members and whilst anyone can bid for items,all the proceeds from this auction will go towards the London Federation's campaign funds to get Jean Lambert re-elected.

We hope that the four items on sale will be of particular interest to Green Party members and that knowing that your money will be going towards a good cause - you'll feel encouraged to bid.

BIDDING ENDS VERY EARLY ON MONDAY MORNING

Please click on the links below or search for all items on sale in ebay for the user greendean.2009 (there's a '.' in the middle).

(1) A piece of history from the 2008 US Presidential elections.Two pens - one from the Obama campaign and one from the McCain campaign.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250339542517

(2) Another piece of world history - but this time from 1994.A genuine ballot paper from the 1994 Presidential Elections in South Africa with Nelson Mandela standing for the ANC.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250339541602

(3) Where you a member of the party in the early 1980s? A rare example of a sweatshirt sold by the Ecology Party as it was. Likely to be in the early 1980s as the party changed its name in 1985. The label refers to "fibres from Monsanto" but I have been reassured that this is before Monsanto got into GM.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250339539559

(4) Finally, a Lewes Pound. Introduced by the Lewes Transition Town. A lovely article in its own right, but further it symbolises the desire of a local community to ensure that the local economy is strengthened and enhanced. As a gift it will at the very least provoke interesting discussions amongst family and friends this Christmas.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250339537939

If the items listed are not really what you're looking for but you'd like to make a contribution to the campaign funds , then please make a cheque payable to "London Green Party" and send it with your name and address to Graham Lee, London Green Party Treasurer, 58 Beech Avenue, Ruislip, HA4 8UQ.

Huge archive of Hollywood history for auction.

Film and TV fans will have a once in lifetime opportunity to purchase an unprecedented 3,000,000 pieces of Hollywood memorabilia as Profiles in History, the recognized world leader in the sale of Hollywood memorabilia presents the entire inventory of the world famous Collectors Book Store in Hollywood in their 34th Hollywood auction. This auction of the largest archive of Hollywood history outside of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will take place over three days-December 12, 13 and 14. Included in the auction will be costumes, movie posters, scripts, portraits, movie stills, lobby cards, fan magazines, press books and other miscellaneous items-some rare and one of a kind. The schedule for Worldwide bidding, which can be placed in person, via mail, phone, fax or live on the Internet via eBay Live Auctions or Live Auctioneers.

The schedule is as follows:


· Friday, December 12, 2008: 11:00 AM PST;
· Saturday and Sunday, December 13 & 14: 10:00 AM PST.

Virtually every film and television show that was made will be represented. The opening bid for each lot will be just $200-$300, making it possible for everyone to have the opportunity to take home a piece of Hollywood history. Many times there will be a collection of five, ten, twenty or even hundreds or thousands of pieces in one lot.

“The quality and sheer magnitude of this archive is hard to describe Because of the volume of merchandise, many of the items will be sold by the file cabinet. There will be some exceptions-the rarest and most valuable items - some of the oversized studio portraits of stars of the 1930s by photographers like George Hurrell will be sold separately,” said Joe Maddalena, President and CEO of Profiles in History.

Photographs include an astounding 1,300,000 8×10 photographs, many of them autographed. The huge collection of oversized photo prints-10″x13″ and 11″x14″ include Hollywood legends Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy and Marlene Dietrich among hundred of others, shot by equally legendary photographers including Clarence Sinclair Bull, George Hurrell, Ruth Harriet Louise, Otto Dyar and Eugene Robert Richee. You will also find employment contracts for Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Abbott and Costello, James Cagney, Cary Grant, W.C. Fields, Alfred Hitchcock, Boris Karloff, John Huston and many more.

The script collection-in the thousands-includes films and stars from every era. The final lot of the auction, Lot # 3009, includes a massive archive of over 4,000 scripts from all eras and genres-with an opening bid of just $200 for the whole lot!

Then, there are the movie posters and lobby cards. Tens of thousands of them, covering the gamut of movie stars and filmmaking. Some lots include three to four thousand posters, all for one price. Profiles in History has assembled special, separate collections for James Bond, Lucy and Star Wars fans. Each of the three large collections of posters, photos, lobby cards and more has an opening bid of just $200 each.



Costumes included in the auction range from those worn by John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Sylvester Stallone and Jack Nicholson, to Herve Villechez and Billy Barty! There is also a huge collection of art from costume designers including Edith Head, Bill Thomas, Cecil Beaton and Helen Rose as well as production artwork and 3,000+ 35mm movie trailers.

For more information and to download a complete catalogue of items available for auction, please visit Profiles In History http://www.profilesinhistory.com/new/

Auction to support animals.

Tomorrow is one of the highlights of the year for Animal Rights people - The CHRISTMAS WITHOUT CRUELTY FAYRE at Kensington Town Hall, just a few yards from Kensington High Street Tube. 10am-5pm. It will be packed with stalls, so a great place to pick up ethical seasonal presents. There will also be interesting fringe events.

One of the highlights will be the annual auction that I have conducted for several years. I haven't yet seen the auction list, but there are always unusual and tempting ideas. Top lot last year was Tony Benn's pipe. The previous year it was Miss England's bikini.

I will also be running the Green Party stall, so come along and have a word.

BOND CAR FOR AUCTION

On December 1, Bonhams in London will auction off the famous white 1976 Lotus Esprit driven by Roger Moore as James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me (one of two made).

Next to the classic Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, the Lotus, which was amphibious in the movie, stands out as the iconic Bond vehicle.

Estimated at about $160,000 to $190,000, it does not unfortunately come equipped with the gadgetry deployed by Moore in the film during his eventful ride with the beautiful Barbara Bach, including a cement sprayer, sea-to-air missiles, front-mounted torpedoes, ink-cloud dispenser and mine launcher. However it does afford the purchaser a chance to join the Ian Fleming Foundation.

Battlestar Galactica to be auctioned off.

Battlestar Galactica is coming to an end with its final ever 10 episodes starting in January, when to coincide with it, props, set pieces and costumes are being auctioned off.

Among the items to be auctioned off:

A life-size Viper. A Cylon raider. Admiral Adama’s duty blue uniform. Apollo’s Viper flight suit. Caprica Six’s red dress. Consoles from the CIC. The Arrow of Apollo. Admiral Adama’s painting of the first Cylon war. Colonel Saul Tigh’s eye patch and liquor bottle. President Laura Roslin’s desk. Original production sketches. Set plans and drawings.

Preview Day – Friday, January 16, 2009 – Pasadena Convention Center (Doors open at 10:00 a.m. and close at 6:00 p.m) (Panel schedule to be announced at another date).

Live Auction Day – Saturday, January 17, 2009 (Doors open at 8:00 a.m. Auction begins at 9:00 a.m.).

Live Auction Day – Sunday, January 18, 2009 (Doors open at 9:00 a.m. Auction begins at 10:00 a.m.).

Online Auction of 200 Items – Tuesday, January 20 (Auction goes live at 9:00 a.m. (ET) and will conclude Friday, January 23, starting at 9:00 p.m. (ET).

First of Several Weekly Online Auctions – Beginning on Friday, January 23, weekly online auctions on eBay begin at 9:00 p.m. (ET).

All info is available at www.battlestarprops.com.

Winnie the Pooh honey sketch fetches sweet price

An original sketch by illustrator E. H. Shepard from The House at Pooh Corner has fetched $57,000 at auction in London, well over the pre-sale estimate.

Tiggers Don’t Like Honey shows Pooh dipping his paw in a honey pot, Tigger with a spoon of honey in his mouth and Piglet looking on.

Auctioneer Bonhams of London said the successful telephone bidder was from Germany and he bought the picture for his wife, a long-time Pooh fan.

The sketch, done for the 1928 edition of A. A. Milne’s classic, is by one of Britain’s most famous illustrators.

Shepard also was the artist for Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows, and a sketch called Now pitch in, old fellow, depicting Rat and Mole lounging with a picnic on a riverbank, sold for $13,670.

A signed first edition of The Tailor of Gloucester, about a kind tailor who is helped by little mice, sold for more than $7,000.

Texas Samaritan buys woman her house at auction

A woman distraught over losing her house showed up to watch it auctioned off, but that wasn't the end of the story. Tracy Orr will return home after a stranger bought the house back for her Saturday.

"It means so much to all of us," Orr said. "It's not just a house."

Marilyn Mock said she decided on the spot to buy the house after striking up a conversation with a sobbing Orr at the auction Saturday. Mock was there to help her 27-year-old son bid on a house.

Mock successfully bid $30,000 for Orr's house in Pottsboro. Orr will make payments to her once the deal is finalized.

"She needed help. That was it," Mock said. "I just happened to be there, and anybody else would have done the same thing."

Orr bought the house for $80,000 in 2004 but lost her job a month after taking out the loan. She fell behind on her payments and lost the house this year — an increasingly common story across the nation.

"She didn't even know if I had a job or was a nut case," Orr said in the Wednesday online edition of The Dallas Morning News. "She didn't even see a picture of the house."

The two are waiting on final approval from mortgage giant Fannie Mae before visiting the home. Mock's son also bought a house at the auction.

Mary Pickford's autograph book for auction

H.G. Wells wrote that Mary Pickford was "his life-long devotion", Thomas Edison dedicated his entry to "the sweetheart of the Americas" and Benito Mussolini simply signed his name and the date, May 10, 1926.

More than 120 famous names from 1926 to 1981 signed the silent film star's personal autograph book, which is among more than 750 lots from the Pickford estate going up for auction for the first time on November 22-23

"These books contain the Who's Who of the 1920s and 1930s," said auctioneer Darren Julien of the autograph book and two leather bound guest books signed by visitors to the Pickfair mansion in Beverly Hills shared by Pickford and actor Douglas Fairbanks.

Pickford's autograph book, which also includes dedications from playwright George Bernard Shaw, aviator Amelia Earhart, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and car maker Henry Ford, carries a pre-sale estimate of $6,000-8,000.

That estimate will be exceeded by a huge margin. I predict well over $50,000.

Dinnerware from parties thrown by the Hollywood couple for royalty and the leading minds of the times are also up for sale along with paintings that once graced the walls of Pickfair, as well as furniture, photos and jewellery.

Before the auction, which will be held live, televised and online by Julien's Auctions, highlights of the sale will go on public exhibit at the Beverly Hilton hotel from Nov 17-21.

*Yeats poem sold at auction

A rare first edition of the renowned W B Yeats poem EASTER 1916 has sold for 7,100 euros.

The poem, which was one of just 25 copies privately published the year after the rising. It had been expected to fetch between 3,000 and 4,000 euro at Adam's auctioneers in Dublin.

Written between May and September 1916, the poem sets out Yeats' mixed feelings on the tumultuous event. It was distributed among only a select number of people for fear of its political impact.

There is a first edition copy in the National Library in Dublin and one in the British Library, but the whereabouts of the other 22 copies are unknown.

Prince Charles' and Camilla's 'crude' drawings up for auction

A Fortnum and Mason chocolate box on which the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall scribbled "crude" jokes and drawings 30 years ago is being put up for auction.

The tin shows a picture of Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason delivering Christmas presents in a horse-drawn carriage.

But the Prince and the Duchess have drawn a pile of horse manure and a puddle under the horse and scribbled silly jokes about diarrhoea and yellow rivers.

Both the royals have signed the chocolate box which shows early evidence of their friendship in the late 1970s.

It is expected to fetch up to £600 when it is put up for auction at Ludlow, in Shropshire, later this year.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, of Mullock's Auctioneers, said: "This is clearly the product of a jovial evening between Charles and Camilla.

"As we now know today they were very much in love at this time and some of the comments are somewhat ribald."

Mr Westwood-Brookes said the box had originally been given to member of staff at Blenheim Palace before they acquired it for auction.

Charles and Camilla's signatures on the box have been cross-checked with other documents to make sure they are legitimate.

The Fortnum and Mason box was on sale in Christmas 1977 - three years after the Duchess married Andrew Parker Bowles.

Mr Westwood-Brookes has put an estimated price of £600 on the box but says the bidding could go a lot higher.

$596,000 for Einstein wristwatch

Antiquorum auctioned off Albert Einstein's 1930 Longines wristwatch on Thursday.

The house estimated the watch would fetch up to $35,000. It went for $520,000. (With fees, the total came to $596,000.) That's over 2000% higher than the estimated price, and a record for any Longines at auction.

The watch is inscribed to "Prof. Albert Einstein," and is also marked with the date on which it was presented to him, February 16, 1931.

Rare Sooty puppet to be auctioned

Fans of children's favourite Sooty will have the chance to own an early version of the bear puppet when it is sold at an auction in Derby later this month.

The yellow bear, who was created by puppeteer Harry Corbett, will be sold with a guide price of £200 to £300, although I predict a price of four figures.

Hansons Auctioneer manager Charles Hanson said: "Apparently this puppet was one of Harry Corbett's most cherished ones."

Sooty has been a fixture on children's TV since the 1950s.

The original puppet was bought on Blackpool Pier for 7/6 in 1948.

It was completely yellow but Corbett sewed on a black nose, mouth and ears so that he stood out on black and white TV.

Sooty, who communicated by apparently whispering in Corbett's ear, was later joined by Sweep, a dog puppet and Soo the panda.

The Sooty puppet was given to senior BBC receptionist Violet Marley in 1962.
Ms Marley gave the puppet to her niece, Sally Keene, who has put it up for sale.

Hanson said the auction is "poignant" because Sooty is 60 this year.
"We hope it will find a good home and stay in the country," he said.

Entertainer Richard Cadell recently bought the rights to the bear, with plans to revive the classic puppet for the next generation of children.

Norwich elephants generate £203,000 at auction

The 53 fibreglass model elephants that have graced Norwich this summer were sold at auction this week for a total of £203,000. Seventy five per cent of this will be split between the Born Free Foundation and CLIC Sargent.

'Jemima' by Susan Gunn sold for £25,000 with 'Angel' by Kate Munro selling for £16,000.

The project was created by The Forum Trust in partnership with Wild in Art, and had already raised nearly £200,000 in sponsorship from local businesses.

www.goelephants.co.uk

Jacques Brel notebooks for auction in Paris.

Sotheby's is set to auction off a private collection of notebooks, autographs and memorabilia of iconic singer Jacques Brel who died thirty years ago.

The auction will take place, in Paris, tomorrow, October 8th.

The sale consists of 94 lots, the top item being a notebook that Brel used to jot down the draft lyrics of his masterpiece Amsterdam which is estimated to sell for between 50,000 and 70,000 euros.

Exceptionally Rare Molière Signature for auction. None sold since 1895!

A document calling in a debt, and signed by the French playwright Molière, is to be sold by auctioneers Bonhams & Butterfields on October 15.

Born in 1622, Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Molière is considered the godfather of French theater. His signatures are exceptionally rare – no other examples are known to have been sold in auction since 1895 – and this is believed to be the last in private hands.

The document bearing his signature and dating from 1667 authorizes a certain Claude Le Long to collect a debt that had been owed to the playwright since 1665. Molière had lent the money to a gentleman named François de La Court.

The one-page document was previously sold at auction in Paris in 1860, and purchased by a collector named Dubrunfaut for 950 francs – at the time the second highest price ever paid for a signature in France- befitting Molière’s status as France’s answer to Shakespeare.

This document, signed by Molière in his precise handwriting, is being sold together with two other documents signed by members of his family, and is expected to fetch between $40,000-60,000.

The illustrated auction catalog will be online for review and purchase in the weeks preceding the sale at www.bonhams.com/

Brain Imaging Study Provides New Insight Into Why People Pay Too Much In Auctions

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2008) — Auctions are an old and widely used method for allocating goods that have become increasingly common with the advent of internet auctions sites such as Ebay. Previous economic research has shown that in an auction people tend to bid "too high," or overbid, given the value of the item for sale.
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By combining brain imaging techniques with behavioral economic research, neuroscientists and economists at New York University were able to provide new insight into this tendency to overbid. Specifically, they show that the fear of losing the social competition inherent in an auction may, in part, cause people to pay too much. The research, which suggests an expanded role for neuroscience in understanding economic behavior, appears in the latest issue of the journal Science.

The goal of the study was to provide insight into the neural circuitry of experimental auctions, and then to use this insight to generate and test a novel economic approach to understand overbidding. It was conducted by a team of NYU neuroscientsts and economists. The neuroscientists were NYU Professor Elizabeth Phelps and Mauricio Delgado, now an assistant professor at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. The economists were Andrew Schotter, a professor in NYU's Department of Economics, and Erkut Ozbay, a former NYU doctoral student and now an assistant professor in the University of Maryland's Department of Economics.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine patterns of brain activation as participants played either an auction game with a partner or a lottery game. In both games participants could win money, but in the auction game winning depended on outbidding a partner. An examination of activation in the striatum, part of the brain's reward circuitry, showed the primary difference when winning or losing in the auction vs. lottery games was an exaggerated response to losses in the auction game. The magnitude of this exaggerated loss response in the striatum during the auction game correlated with the tendency to overbid, suggesting the intriguing hypothesis that perhaps the prospect of losing the social competition inherent in an auction may lead people to bid "too high."
To confirm this hypothesis, a follow-up behavioral economic study was conducted. Three groups of participants played an auction game against a partner under different circumstances. The control group was simply given values and asked to make bids. The Bonus-Frame group was told that if they won the auction, they would also receive a bonus of 15 experimental dollars. The Loss-Frame group was given 15 experimental dollars prior to the auction, but participants were told they would lose the 15 dollars if they failed to win the auction.

In both the Loss and Bonus-Frame conditions, only the winners would get an additional 15 experimental dollars, so the auctions were strategically identical. The difference was simply the way it was framed to emphasize losing or winning. Consistent with the hypothesis that contemplation of loss may, in part, drive overbidding, participants in the Loss-Frame condition consistently bid higher than the other two groups, resulting in a greater potential profit for a hypothetical auctioneer.

According to Schotter, "such a result would not have been predicted by existing economic theory. While there have been investigations of overbidding which have attributed the phenomenon to either risk aversion or the 'joy of winning,' it was the use of imaging data which allowed us to distinguish between these conflicting explanations and actually arrive at a new and different one, the 'fear of losing.' Our results provide evidence of how an understanding of the neural systems of economic behavior might inform economic theory."

"These results highlight a role for the contemplation of social loss in understanding the tendency to bid 'too high' in auctions and emphasize the importance of considering social factors in economic decisions," Phelps explained. "By combining neuroeconomic and behavioral economic techniques we were able to provide novel insight into a classic economic problem."

"Although there have been a number of neuroeconomic studies that have used economic games to further our understanding of brain function, the benefits to traditional behavioral economics as a result are unclear," Delgado added. "Because of recent advances in neuroeconomics and our knowledge of the neural circuitry related to reward, we were able to use neuroimaging results to highlight the importance of framing, and specifically the contemplated loss, as an explanation for overbidding during experimental auctions."

Nelson barrel makes £8,160 in Bonhams auction.

A box believed to be made of wood from a barrel that held Admiral Lord Nelson's body on its voyage back to Britain from the Battle of Trafalgar was sold for £8,160 at auction yesterday.

The box was one of several items of memorabilia associated with the naval hero in a marine sale at Bonhams in London.

They didn’t have deepfreeze in those days, so his body was sent back in a keg of brandy. I read, somewhere, that the sailors tapped the barrel and that the admiral was fairly ‘sniffy’ when it was opened in London.

£1,000,000 note for auction

Spink are to offer a £1m Treasury Note. Dated London 30 August 1948, and printed with the red serial number 000008, it is one of only two surviving examples from the nine thought to have been printed in connection with the Marshall Plan.

They were intended for internal use as “records of movement” and were in use for only a period of six weeks.

Unlike the usual banknotes, which carry a promise from the Bank of England to pay the bearer on demand the sum shown, this Treasury Note states that it “entitles the Bank of England to payment of one million pounds out of the Consolidation Fund of the United Kingdom”.

Number seven was first sold in 1977 and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as being the highest denomination note in private hands.

Estimate is £40,000 and will be up for auction in Spinks sale on October 1st.

Olympics furniture auction given cold shoulder

The Olympics and Paralympics might have left many Chinese with fond memories, but that isn't translating into buying interest at auctions for memorabilia and furniture used during the events.

More than 60,000 pieces of furniture used during the dual Games, as well as souvenirs, got the cold shoulder at an auction on Thursday, according to the Beijing Times.

The newspaper reported on Friday that the auction, the third of its kind, drew only 17 bidders for beds, mattresses, desks and refrigerators. The items were mainly from two media villages -- North Star and Huiyuan -- and were offered in 18 lots.

Four lots comprising 13,000 items only sold after their asking prices were slashed by 10 percent.

The remaining 14 lots, involving more than 50,000 items, went unsold, said the newspaper.

Einstein’s watch for auction

A Longines watch which belonged to the Nobel Prize winner for the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein, will be auctioned on October, 16th in New York by Antiquorum.

The 14ct gold wristwatch was presented in Einstein in 1931 and is estimated to make $25,000-$35,000

ANIMAL ART AUCTION.

A lion from the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines will be one of several zoo animals whose artwork will be auctioned Tuesday in Milwaukee.

The unusual auction will raise money for the zoos to help with wildlife conservation efforts.

The other artists from around the U.S. include two Milwaukee County Zoo penguins and a porcupine from Pueblo Zoo in Colorado.

Sixty-one items are listed for sale at the live auction. The auction will run from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and be streamed online.

The Auction Network is holding the sale during the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' annual conference in Milwaukee.

Liquid gold . . . 150-year whisky up for auction

A BOTTLE of Scotch whisky believed to be the oldest in existence is to be auctioned later this month.

The Glenavon Special Liqueur Whisky, believed to be almost 150 years old, is expected to fetch between £5,000 and £10,000 when it goes under the hammer at Bonhams on November 29.

The bottle, which is unusually small in size, contains about 14 fluid ounces of pale gold liquid and is believed to have been bottled by the Glenavon Distillery, in Banffshire, Scotland, between 1851 and 1858.

The precious whisky bottle has been in the family of a woman in Ireland for generations

Kidney for sale in online auction

A Pakistani has put his kidney up for sale at a leading auction website of the country.

In recent years, Pakistan has emerged as one of the largest centers for commerce in renal transplantation but an anonymous 26-year-old "healthy male" deciding to sell his kidney on bolee.com is a pointer towards the thriving trade.

An advertisement on 'Pakistan’s First Auction Site’ reads, "Kidney for Sale: I am a 26-year-old healthy person and want to sell one of my kidneys for AB+ compatible person. My demand is Rs 600,000 (operation and other medical expenses will be borne by kidney purchaser)."

There have been no bids yet.

According to a recent research, Pakistan has now emerged as one of the largest centers for commerce and tourism in renal transplantation. Of the 239 kidney vendors contacted by the researchers, 69% were bonded labourers, 12% labourers, 8.5% housewives and 11% unemployed.

Their mean age was around 35 years. Though kidneys are sold for about $1,500, post-operation the donors hardly ever benefit.

CHURCHILL PAINTING EXPECTED TO MAKE £150,000

A painting relegated to an attic for the last thirty years is about to make it’s unappreciative owner a tidy sum when it comes up for auction later this month.

The painting – Windlesham Moor - was given to the vendor by his mother who was secretary to one of the PMs colleagues.

SCOTLAND’S FIRST NUMBERPLATE FOR AUCTION.

One of the earliest number plates ever issued could go under the hammer later this month.

The registration mark "S1" has been estimated to fetch between £200,000 and £250,000.

The historic plate was the first registration number to be issued in Edinburgh and it belonged to a leading pioneer of motoring.

This month's sale marks the first time the registration number has come on the market since it was created in 1903.

“£100 ewer” expected to make $5,000,000.

A 1,000-year-old carved rock crystal ewer will go on auction at Christie's Islamic art sale next month.

This ewer, one of the only seven known surviving rock crystal ewers, will fetch some 5.3 million dollars, auctioneers estimated.

The piece was produced for the court of the Fatimid rulers of Cairo in the late 10th or early 11th century.

Embellished in enameled gold mounts made in 1854 by a French silversmith, it is the same ewer that came up for auction in Britain last January, expecting to make £220,000, or more than one thousand times its pre-sale estimate.

Experts however discovered the ewer to be an extremely rare one from the Fatimid dynasty though it was catalogued as a "19th century French claret jug" valued at £100-200.

Christie's said the January auction was stopped as such "by agreement," but giving no further details.

The Fatimid dynasty, ruling parts of Northern Africa and the Middle East, became so impoverished that much of its Royal Treasury had to be sold, including the ewers.

The ewer was carved from a single piece of flawless rock crystal which was hollowed out and carved by hand, and was decorated with cheetahs and link-chains.

Christie's is to hold sale of Islamic and Indian art on Oct. 7 in London.

Marilyn Monroe ‘love’ sofa up for auction

A sofa on which actor Glenn Ford supposedly made love with Marilyn Monroe is to be auctioned off in October.

Peter Ford, son of the actor who died in 2006 at the age of 90, said his father secretly commemorated the rendezvous on the eight-foot long plaid couch in his Beverly Hills home.

Glenn Ford marked the event by writing on the back of an oil painting that was dear to Monroe and hung near the sofa, Peter Ford said in a statement.

"When we made love she whispered, 'I wish I could die now, while I'm happy,'" Ford wrote on the back of the painting. The story first came to light when Peter Ford discovered the writing after his father's death.

The auction on October 4-6 by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, Texas, will also feature other personal items from Ford's estate.

Queen Victoria's stockings make £8,000 in auction

A pair of Queen Victoria's stockings has fetched £8,000 at auction in the Mackworth Hotel near Derby.

The black and white stockings were bought for the Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum in Nottingham by David Alcock, whose father-in-law Jack Smirfitt was a curator at the museum.

Mr Alcock, a 52-year-old mechanic from North Wales, saw off bids from as far away as Canada for the stockings, which were discovered in the loft of a former teacher.

The list price for the stockings in the auction's catalogue was £200.

After his successful bid, Mr Alcock said he bought the stockings for the museum on behalf of one its curators, his father-in-law, Mr Smirfitt, who died in May.

Helen Brownett, a curator at the museum, said: "They were probably made in Nottingham or Derby. It was really important to keep them local and where the public can see them. If they had been bought by a private collector the public wouldn't see them."

Diana wedding cake slice makes £1,200 at auction

A piece of 27-year-old cake from the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana has been sold to an anonymous bidder at auction for £1,200.

The slice of marzipan and icing -- decorated with the royal coat of arms -- came from one of 22 cakes distributed to royal staff after Charles and Diana's nuptials in July 1981.

It was given to Moyra Smith, a member of the Queen Mother's household, who kept the topping in cling film as a souvenir. When she died, her husband Don saw no reason to keep it.

"He had no particular feeling for it and will donate the money to several charities," said auctioneer Dominic Winter in Gloucestershire, who sold the item on Wednesday.

Fundraising company auctions its services

Company Solutions Ltd is trialling an innovative way of selling some of its fundraising services.

This Summer it is auctioning two services to the highest bidder. Charities are invited to place bids on 20 training course places or 100 grantmaking trust applications.

The top single or multiple bids will win the prizes, "depending on the number of bids and value".

Gareth Edwards of Company Solutions says "If charities like the concept, we will be repeating it regularly".

The normal price for the training courses would be £1,386.50 including VAT, and £1762.50 including VAT for the 100 trust applications researched and carried out.

Selling fundraising services or products to the highest bidder is unlikely to appeal to many of the larger fundraising agencies with a certain degree of fixed costs, but for a smaller agency it might help it stand out from the crowd and give charity clients the sense that they are acquiring services at a discount.

www.companysolutions.biz/Page1.aspx?ID=220

I know Gareth Edwards from the Green Party and can recommend him

Suitcase Full of Explosives Found in Auction

Another item for my series of peculiar things that turn up at auction. I have conducted over 2,000 auctions, but, thankfully have never come across something like this.


A recently deceased Navy veteran's belongings were ready to be sold at an estate auction on Saturday morning.

Just before the start of the auction, auctioneers opened a padlocked and rusting suitcase and discovered three blocks of military-grade C-4.


The C-4 was estimated to be at least 15 years old, degraded and unstable. Two tubes of a similar explosive, a blasting cap and dynamite were also discovered in the suitcase.

They were placed in a special container and destroyed by the bomb squad.
Faulkner County Sheriff Karl Byrd stressed that owning dynamite or plastic explosives without the proper permissions is "definitely illegal".

No one was injured in the incident.

See also previous postings:

http://auctions-auctioneering.blogspot.com/2008/08/damages-award-for-man-who-bought.html
http://auctions-auctioneering.blogspot.com/2007/05/buying-at-auction-without-viewing-is.html

Mary, Queen of Scots hair for auction

From the Lyon & Turnbull auction in Edinburgh:

Sale No 219 - Scottish Silver
26 Aug 2008 14:00 - Edinburgh
Lot 262
A mid Victorian velvet casket, set with a memoriam locket of Mary Queen of Scots hair, 15.5cm x 12cm x 9cm
Estimate: £2000 - 3000

Capt. Cook’s boomerang for auction

A BOOMERANG collected by Captain James Cook on his expedition to Australia is being put up for sale in London next month and is expected to fetch up to £60,000.

The boomerang, along with two wooden clubs that belonged to Aborigines Cook met in 1770, are believed to represent one of the first points of contact between Aborigines and Europeans.

Captain Cook had little idea what a boomerang was (he believed it was a wooden weapon) when he returned to England and left it to his wife, Elizabeth. She gave the boomerang and clubs to the executor of her will, John Leach Bennett. They have since remained in the Bennett family, which has now decided to sell them.

Christie's auctioneers believe the boomerang, which measures just under 56 centimeters in length and has no markings on it, will be highly sought after by international collectors when it goes on sale on September 25.

So far only six other Aboriginal artifacts — three fish spears, a lance or javelin, a spear shaft and a shield — have been traced to Cook's first visit to Australian soil.

Damages award for man who bought marijuana-stuffed SUV at police auction and subsequently got arrested for possession.

A federal judge in San Diego has awarded $551,000 in damages to a man who bought a car with 37 pounds of marijuana hidden in it at a government auction.

Francisco Rivera Agrendano spent a year in a Mexican prison after he was busted at a roadblock near Ensenada while driving an SUV that turned out to have packages of moldering pot stuffed in the door panels and seats.

The San Diego Union-Tribune said Monday that U.S. District Judge Emily Hewitt wrote in a her recently released opinion that U.S. Customs officials could not explain how they missed so much contraband when they originally searched the vehicle; however she dismissed the contention that agents didn't tear it apart too much so they could maintain the resale value.

Federal attorneys were not required to go into much detail on their search procedures in order to prevent their techniques from being made public.

Rivera told The Union-Tribune in Tijuana that he was pleased with Hewitt's decision but said the amount wouldn't cover the expenses of his ordeal. Hewitt's order specified how much of the award would go to legal expenses, lost income, the price of the SUV and psychiatric treatment.

Beatles first contract expected to make £250,000 at London Auction

The Beatles' first fully signed contract with manager Brian Epstein is expected to raise £250,000 when it comes up for auction in London in September.

Epstein's personal copy of the historic document will be included in auctioneer The Fame Bureau's Sept. 4 sale of rock and pop memorabilia at the Idea Generation Gallery in east London, said an e-mailed statement issued on behalf of the specialist auction house.

The contract, which entitled the manager to 25 percent of the band's gross earnings, was signed by Epstein on Oct. 1, 1962, after he secured the Beatles' first record agreement with EMI.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr (under his birth name Richard Starkey) had signed the contract earlier that year, on Jan. 24, 1962; Epstein withheld his signature until he had clinched their first deal. The fathers of Harrison and McCartney were also signatories, as their sons were under 21 at the time, said the statement.

``This is the most important pop music document that's left in private hands,'' said Ted Owen, managing director of The Fame Bureau, in a phone interview. ``It's a life-changing contract for the Beatles.''

The contract has been put up for sale by a businessman from northern England who collects pop memorabilia, said Owen. It last came up for auction at Christie's, London, in May 2004, when it fetched £122,850 with saleroom fees.

The Fame Bureau auction will also include the Bechstein piano used by the Beatles to record ``Hey Jude,'' estimated at between £300,00 and £400,000.

In October 2000, at a joint New York and London auction organized by Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood and Ted Owen, singer George Michael paid £1.67 million with fees for the piano on which Lennon wrote ``Imagine.''

In 1985, Sotheby's sold Lennon's hand-painted Rolls-Royce Phantom V for $2.3 million.
A 1965 Fender Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix set alight at the Finsbury Astoria theater in London in March 1967 is estimated at £500,000. According to The Fame Bureau, this was the first guitar that Hendrix set fire to during a live performance

An auction tale of huge knickers and a small condom.

An Australian woman has taken revenge on her cheating husband by auctioning his mistress's "huge" panties and his "size small" condom packet on eBay.

The seller, named only as Anna from Queensland state, says next in line for auction will probably be her husband's Harley Davidson motorcycle "at a start price of 99 cents and, of course, with no reserve!"

A photograph shows the lacy black underpants, described as "size humongous" and the "size small" condom wrapper, which the woman found in her bed after her husband's alleged affair with a woman named Kylie.

Anna says of the panties: "They are so huge I thought they may make someone a nice shawl or, even better, something for Halloween perhaps."

She describes how she returned home early from work after her "soon to be ex-husband" of 22 years mistakenly sent her a romantic text message meant for the other woman, to find him discouraging her from entering their bedroom.

In the room she found the empty condom wrapper under his pillow and "The Tart's panties at the foot of the bed".

The listing was initially taken down by eBay because of its policy of refusing to sell secondhand underwear, spokeswoman Inessa Jackson told Brisbane's Courier Mail.
"We let her know about the policy and instead she's now selling a photograph of the offending knickers," Jackson said.

"eBay does connect colourful buyers with colourful sellers and I wouldn't be surprised if someone did buy these items, though I couldn't speculate on who would buy them or why.

"This is obviously very therapeutic for this woman and it must be a great channel for her views on cheating and the sanctity of marriage."

The photograph, which had a starting price of just 69 US cents, down from the original 99 cents asked for the actual items, had received 47 bids by Thursday, with the top offer standing at 127.50 US dollars with four days to go.

The listing, along with the wife's story, has been added to eBay Australia's Best of eBay site at http://bestof.ebay.com.au.

New combined Online Auction and Social Networking combined site.

New Online Auctions and Social Networking Website Launches at myAuctionNetwork.com


A new website launching this week aims to wed the unlike web worlds of online auctions and social networking by being one site that does it all.



It just might be the best of both worlds. Or all three worlds for that matter.
Three worlds, because the recently launched myAuctionNetwork.com has not contented itself with combining the vast marketing reach of the Internet with a decidedly down-to-earth customer service approach rooted in fostering personal relationships.

It also aims to wed the unlike web worlds of online auctions and social networking by being one site that does it all.

The result, the site’s creator said, is a one-stop destination built on a “community of sellers, buyers and social visitors,” rather than taking on the traditionally utilitarian and impersonal feel of most auction sites.

“It has the bells and whistles of MySpace, plus it has auctions,” said Brian Schwartz, the Boynton Beach entrepreneur behind myAuctionNetwork.com.

“One of my goals is to bring more transparency into the online auction market,” he said.

That market has seen some turmoil this year, with such upheavals as a fee hikes at eBay that had sellers up in arms and questioning the viability of continuing to sell their wares as profit margins shrank.

Sellers at myAuctionNetwork.com do not pay the “listing fees” other sites charge and commissions are capped at five percent, as opposed to as much as 12 percent elsewhere, Schwartz said.

As important as the economics, however, is the social aspect of myAuctionNetwork.com, he added, noting that relationships can develop when buyers and sellers and browsers mingle in the marketplace.

“Shopping should be a social event,” he said. “Isn’t that how we live in our actual communities?”

Elvis jumpsuit makes $300K in online auction

Elvis Presley's favorite performance costume, the peacock jumpsuit, sold for $300,000 Thursday, making it the most expensive piece of Elvis memorabilia sold at auction.

The online sale by auctioneer Gotta Have It! ended at 3 a.m. The pre-sale estimate was $275,000 to $325,000.

Presley paid $10,000 to have the outfit made by Los Angeles designer Bill Belew, who created all of The King's stage wardrobe between 1968-1977. It captured the rock 'n' roll legend's fascination with peacocks as a good luck symbol and the auction house said it was among his favorite Belew designs.

Elvis first wore the costume at the Forum in Los Angeles on May 11, 1974, and later for the cover of his album "Promised Land."

The previous record for an Elvis collectible is $295,000 for his 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II.

The most ever paid previously for one of his stage costumes, the so-called aloha cape, which was worn during one of his last television shows, was $105,250. Both were sold at a 1999 auction at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn., run by Guernsey's.

Queen Victoria’s knickers make £4,500 in auction

A pair of Queen Victoria’s bloomers, with a 50-inch waist, were snapped up for £4,500 by a Canadian woman at Mackworth in Derby on Wednesday.

Auctioneer Charles Hanson said Queen Victoria’s underpants belonged to “a very big lady of quite small stature with a very wide girth.” She was said to be 5 feet tall.

The handmade knickers — which date to the 1890s — bear the monogram “VR” for Victoria Regina. They are open-crotch style, with separate legs joined by a drawstring at the waist, a popular style in the late Victorian era.

The royal drawers belonged to a family in western England whose ancestor was a lady-in-waiting for the queen.

Also up for auction was Queen Victoria’s chemise, with a 66-inch bust, which sold for £3,800. Her nightgown sold for £5,200.

1909 baseball card makes $1.62 million at auction

An Arkansas man bought a 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card for $1.62 million at a memorabilia auction in Chicago.

The new owner of the T206 Wagner card was a man from Little Rock, Ark., according to auctioneer Doug Allen, chief operating officer of Mastro Auctions of Burr Ridge.

The record price for a baseball card is $2.8 million—paid in 2007 for a near-mint condition Wagner card released in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company.

Wagner's card was among the first of hundreds of cards of major league players produced by the American Tobacco Co. and included in packages of cigarettes.

Unlike other players, however, Wagner quickly demanded his card be withdrawn.

Theories vary as to why, with one being that he didn't believe American Tobacco paid him enough.
There are fewer than 100 Wagner baseball cards in existence, said Julie Stoklosa, a spokeswoman for Mastro Auctions, and fewer than 10 are in excellent condition.

Allen said even the lowest graded Wagner baseball cards can fetch more than $150,000.

George Best Faberge egg for auction, in Manchester on Sunday

Football Collectors from across the world are expected to go to Manchester when a Fabergé Egg tribute to late Manchester United legend George Best goes up for auction.

The egg followed a similar sporting tribute to Jimmy Johnstone of Celtic.

The rare egg will feature at a special sale of football memorabilia and is expected to fetch at least £45,000. Auction organiser David Goldemann said: "Fabergé has only ever made tribute eggs to four Westerners - George Best being one. This is a very rare egg and we are really excited to have it at our auction in Manchester. I think it will attract a lot of interest from the serious collectors."

Peter Carl Fabergé, goldsmith to the Imperial Court of Russia, became renowned for his exquisite series of jewelled Easter eggs, the first commissioned by Alexander III for the Tsarina in 1884. The George best egg was made by his great-grand-daughter Sarah.

Only 68 of the George Best Fabergé Eggs were made and this is only the second time one has come up for sale. The egg, made of 24 carat gold and just nine and a half inches tall, features a detachable top half. When this is removed, a gold figurine of Northern Ireland and United striker George Best kicking a football is revealed. It has been on display at Belfast City Airport, in George Best's home town, for a number of years now, but the owner has now decided to sell.

The auction is being held at the Greater Manchester Police sports and social club in Chorlton on August 3 - with lots of other football memorabilia also up for sale.


Catalogue can be viewed here: www.goldemannauctions.co.uk