Jun 25, 2018
What’s the auction record for a piece of Star wars memorabilia? I’ll bet anything that most people will now think it is the Han Solo Jedi blaster gun that sold for $550,000 in California on June 24. Guess what: not even close!
It’s certainly a better price than the $172,200 paid for a Chewbacca set mask in 2012, the $191,000 paid for Han Solo’s jacket in 2016 and the $280,600 for a fighter helmet from Episode IV, A New Hope, also in 2016.
Back in 2012 again, an X-Wing fighter model climbed to $221,400, while Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from Episodes IV and V went as high as $240,000 in 2008 – surely one of the most iconic pieces ever to come up for sale, and quite a price bearing in mind that it didn’t actually work. The buyer was savvy, however, as they resold it for $450,000 just last year.
The prices keep rising though, from the $319,500 paid in 2011 for a Stormtrooper costume to the $402,500 another buyer paid for the TIE Starfighter ship, also from A New Hope. The Rebel Blockade Runner prop from the opening scene of the first film made $465,000 in 2015, but the prize goes to the R2-D2 prop used in several of the films, which went for a cool $2.76m in 2017.
How long before we see a double-digit price in the millions, I wonder?
Jun 18, 2018
Elvis Presley’s gold lion-head ring has just sold for £33,500 at auction, while his first Las Vegas contract, dating from 1956, went for £28,000. Both sold in the UK but to US collectors.
When it comes to the world of entertainment – rock and pop, films and suchlike – memorabilia follows the same rules that religious relics would have followed in the Middle Ages. Think about all those Renaissance churches in Italy, France and Spain with a splinter from the Holy Cross, a saint’s finger bone and the rest. The idea is that the closer you can get to the individual, the closer you also get to God.
It’s the same for items associated with the music greats, like Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Bowie and the rest. A signature is a good start; a signed album, concert programme or other memento is even better. Stage and screen clothing, unique musical instruments and highly personal items like Elvis’s ring are the jackpot. A Hendrix guitar from a famous concert would make millions: the 1968 Stratocaster he played at Woodstock sold to Paul Allen of Microsoft for his Jimi Hendrix Museum in Seattle for $2 million. There are even investment funds dedicated to this sort of thing. Eric Clapton owned four of the ten most expensive guitars ever sold. It’s all about the rock gods in the end.
Jun 11, 2018
Who wouldn’t want to take €7m for a single painting at auction? What a result!
That’s what happened in Paris earlier this month when the 1882 work Fishing Net Menders in the Dunes came up for sale with an estimate of just €3m-5m.
Why is this interesting? Because the artist was none other than Vincent van Gogh.
But hang on a minute, if it’s van Gogh, then €7m really doesn’t sound that much, let alone a mid estimate of around half that. After all, it was only last November that an 1889 landscape by van Gogh took $72m at auction, while other works have made even more. How come?
In a word, it’s all about timing. Some artists peak early in their careers and never recapture that initial brilliance, but most, van Gogh included, mature into what becomes their recognised style, focusing on subject matter that itself becomes iconic.
In van Gogh’s case, while he remained poor all his life and only managed to sell one painting in his lifetime – Red Vineyard at Arles – his artistic breakthrough came in 1888-89 as his late, vibrant and energetic if troubled style emerged, yielding blasts of colour and movement via strong, obsessive brushstrokes.
This is the art that takes the millions and that collectors will pursue relentlessly.
The painting that sold in Paris in early June dates to seven years before this. Highly accomplished, yes; but without the extraordinary genius of his mature period, and so, while still able to command several million euros, not in the same league as Sunflowers, The Starry Night or his astonishing late self portraits.
Jun 4, 2018
What is the most famous map in English literature: the pirate map in Peter Pan? How about Tolkein’s map of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings, a highlight of the forthcoming exhibition on the author in Oxford? I’ve always loved EH Shepard’s map of the River, the Wild Wood and Toad Hall in Wind in The Willows. Apparently, though, it is Shepard’s other masterpiece, the map of Hundred Acre Wood in Winnie-the-Pooh, which crowns them all.
The market is about to test this theory as the original 1926 sketch comes up for auction in early July with an estimate that stretches to £150,000. That may sound a lot until you consider that an original Shepard drawing depicting Pooh and his friends playing Pooh sticks sold for £314,500 four years ago – a record for any book illustration sold at auction.
These entrancing pictorial maps are a delight to any child – and adult come to that – even more so now than in times past when you look at the price the Hundred Acre Wood map achieved when it first came to auction exactly 50 years ago: £650. Even with inflation, that would come nowhere near the £150,000 mooted now.
You can feast your eyes on more pictorial maps at the unique London Map Fair this weekend near the Albert Hall, where the event is making a special feature of them.
May 29, 2018
Before the days of Netflix, Amazon Prime and multi-channel TV, the Saturday night viewing choice was restricted to three, then four channels: BBC1, BBC2, ITV and, later, Channel 4. In the golden days of TV light entertainment, the 1970s, the airwaves were dominated by Michael Parkinson, Morecambe & Wise and The Two Ronnies, my own personal favourite.
So it was with some interest that I discovered that Ronnie Barker’s handwritten script to the comedy duo’s most famous sketch, Four Candles, is coming up for auction.
First aired in 1976, it was voted the best ever Two Ronnies sketch, going down in comedy folklore as the ultimate example of the pair’s talent.
Barker famously wrote the sketch under the pseudonym Gerald Wiley to test whether the programme’s producers thought the work good enough for airing, a practice he adopted often.
It is thought that he later donated the script – actually titled Annie Finkhouse – to a charity auction, which is how it eventually surfaced on the Antiques Roadshow last year.
The estimate is £40,000, but I could see it making considerably over that sum if the sale is marketed well enough.
The sketch was so iconic that four candles were lit in tribute at each of Barker and Corbett’s funerals.
Mass digital entertainment may have diluted the power of acts like the Two Ronnies these days, but at lest you can still see the sketch on YouTube.
May 21, 2018
The announcement of an auction of more than 2000 postcards depicting Grimsby in its Victorian heyday brings into sharp focus the importance of photography as a collecting medium.
They come from a collection of 16,000 postcards amassed by the late David Robinson, editor of Lincolnshire Life and an historian, who died last year aged 89.
Each one is an historical document in its own right, packed with detail about how our forebears lived their lives and, from a market point of view, highly saleable because of their appeal to so many different people, from those who live in the area to local historians and collectors of vernacular photography.
As inexpensive items, they also act as one of the gateway collectables that trigger the desire to explore other fields of collecting, from grander, more expensive photographs to fine art in the form of prints, drawings and, eventually, paintings as individuals become more confident in their knowledge and so happier to spend larger sums.
The big story behind the Grimsby scenes is just how different the town is today. Gone are the fishing fleets crowding the docks; gone too are the trams gliding up Victoria Street. And, of course, the shops, clothes and buildings are largely changed too. I could sit and look at these for hours.
May 14, 2018
Another auction record has fallen in the past week or so after Christie’s brought the hammer down on $800 million (£590m) worth of art from a single collection. No surprise that the collection belonged to Peggy and David Rockefeller, a family that has been a cornerstone of the art market ever since wealthy US industrialists first turned their attention to culture towards the end of the 19th century.
To put in context just how big this sale was, the previous record for a single-owner collection was set by the Yves St Laurent Collection, also offered by Christie’s, which totalled $484m (£357m) in Paris in 2009.
The three-day Rockefeller sale ended on May 10 with a flourish, when a Picasso painting once owned by the writer Gertrude Stein took $115m (£85m) by itself.
By that time bidders had had the chance to compete for works by Monet ($84m/£62m) and Matisse ($80.8m/£59.7m) – a new record for the artist – while even those without access to millions could compete for modestly priced items, such as cufflinks.
All of the 893 lots offered live sold, with another 600 sold online.
Peggy Rockefeller died in 1996 and David in 2017, and the sale was staged by their son David Jr who pledged the proceeds to charity.
Great art, great wealth, a spectacular occasion and, at the end of it all, a massive boost to worthy causes; it doesn’t get better than that.
May 8, 2018
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May 8, 2018
I have long been curious to find out what the most popular items are that people search for online when it comes to art, antiques and collectables auctions. Now, one of the world’s largest specialist search engines for this sort of thing, Barnebys, has revealed all in its latest annual report, which is being published in the next few weeks.
Looking at the registered search terms for auction alerts – when users set up automatic emails to let them know them that something they are particularly interested in is coming up for auction – it transpires that the most quoted brand name is Rolex. No surprise there, I suppose, nor that leading brand names for watches dominate searches in general, even though most people can’t afford them.
If so, why are so many seeking them out at online auctions? Is it just aspirational? Do they just want to inspect these watches close up and in detail? Or are they hoping to get a bargain? Who can say?
Whatever those reasons are, they must be the same for explaining the other most commonly used brand names in auction alert searches: Picasso, Banksy, Ferrari, Cartier and Tiffany.
All I can say is that I am just as aspirational as these would-be buyers. If I could fill my auctions with all of the above I would be a happy man indeed!
Apr 30, 2018
Wow what an exciting sale we had with many international bidders in the room. The star lot was an Indian deity which turned out to be 1000 years older than thought. It sold to a US dealer for £155,000 in the room.
The 7¾in Indian figure of deity, which had sat on the shelf of its owner’s home for the past 30 years, was thought to be 19th century, but was at least 1000 years older and extremely rare.
It was consigned with another piece, a rare 18in high bronze figure from the south Indian Chola dynasty and dating back to around the 12th century, which took £220,000 against hopes of £30,000-50,000.
A third bronze of the god Vishnu, standing 12½in high and from the collection of the late Andrew Solomon, sold for £64,000 having been pitched at £12,000-15,000. It dated to the 15th century.
