auction

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After Marrying Jackie, JFK Sent Woman Love Letters

He fell for Gunilla Von Post weeks before his lavish wedding

(Newser) - Exactly 52 years and one day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a batch of letters the then senator wrote to Swedish socialite Gunilla von Post sold for $15,000 at Upper East Side auction house Doyle New York, reports People . This set includes two complete letters on Senate stationary,...

Someone Just Paid $23K for a Cracker

A 103-year-old biscuit survived the Titanic

(Newser) - A Greek investor is now the proud owner of "the [world's] most expensive biscuit" —a 103-year-old cracker that survived the sinking of the Titanic, Mashable reports. The Spillers and Bakers Pilot biscuit, which made its way into a survival kit on one of the lifeboats that April...

Rarest Nazi Enigma Machine Sells for Record $365K

It was bought by an anonymous private collector at auction

(Newser) - The M4 is the rarest of the already rare Nazi Enigma machines, which could help explain why a working model just sold for a record $365,000 at an auction Wednesday in New York. The Guardian reports the 70-year-old encryption machine was purchased by an anonymous private collector. “The...

Photo, Note About Titanic Iceberg Emerge

They're both going up for auction

(Newser) - A photo of what could be history's deadliest iceberg is up for auction after spending nearly a century on a wall in the offices of the law firm that represented the Titanic's owners. There are other photos in existence of the iceberg believed to have sunk the huge...

Items Tied to Titanic's Millionaire's Lifeboat Are Sold

A last lunch menu fetched $88K at auction

(Newser) - The Titanic's last lunch menu, saved by a first-class passenger who climbed aboard a lifeboat whose crew was said to have been bribed to row away instead of rescue more people, sold at auction for $88,000 on Wednesday. New York's Lion Heart Autographs offered the menu and...

A Man Once Bought Stonehenge 'on a Whim'

Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge 100 years ago, then gave it away

(Newser) - One of history's more grand misplaced romantic gestures involves a British wife who was hoping for new curtains and instead got a bunch of rocks. A century ago, on Sept. 21, 1915, Cecil Chubb set off for an auction "and came back with something rather different" than the...

Beatles' First Contract Sells For $93K

It was apparently for a German recording of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

(Newser) - New York's Heritage Auctions says it just sold a 1961 Beatles recording contract—the first the band ever signed—for more than $93,000. So what's the first song the Beatles were contracted to record? Apparently, a version of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. While it obviously...

Ringo Starr Is Hawking a Treasure Trove of Beatles Stuff

Drummer auctioning off more than 800 things he owned

(Newser) - More than 800 items owned by Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach, are going to auction, including rare Beatles memorabilia like his three-piece drum kit used in more than 200 performances and a Rickenbacker guitar known as the "Beatle-Backer" that John Lennon owned and later gave to Starr....

Lyrics Tupac Wrote in Jail Going Up for Auction

One set could fetch nearly $80K

(Newser) - While Tupac Shakur was in jail in 1995, a year before his shooting death, he hand-wrote lyrics that are now going up for auction, ITV News reports. The original penned lyrics for "Ambitionz Az a Ridah" and "Tradin' War Stories" are expected to fetch high prices (as much...

Letter by 'Titanic's Coward' Goes Up for Auction

Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon was accused of leaving women, children behind

(Newser) - At the time, he was accused of cowardice during the sinking of the Titanic. Now a letter by Scottish landowner Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon—in which he defends himself against an "unjust inquiry"—is headed for the auction block and is expected to rake in more than $6,000,...

Sunken Ship's Treasures to Go Up for Auction

Jewelry from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha will likely fetch big bucks

(Newser) - A solid gold chain and an intricate gold-and-enamel spoon are among items pulled from the wreckage of a 400-year-old Spanish galleon that will be auctioned off next month. Nuestra Senora de Atocha went down in a violent hurricane in 1622 near the Florida Keys laden with New World gold while...

John Lennon's Lost Guitar Turns Up in Weird Way

Gibson instrument expected to fetch up to $800K

(Newser) - John Lennon last saw his prized J-160E Gibson guitar—the instrument he played when recording "Love Me Do"—in December 1963, during a Beatles Christmas show in a London park. The guitar went missing and stayed that way for about 50 years, when an amateur guitarist realized he'...

Rare Surrender Papers of Last Nazi Leader to Be Sold

Adm. Karl Doenitz's 'we give up' message could fetch up to $30K

(Newser) - Tomorrow at Bonhams auction house in New York, more than 300 lots of WWII memorabilia—uniforms, flags, cigarette cases—from nearly 10 countries will go on the selling block. But one piece of memorabilia is especially rare, somehow making it out of war-torn Germany before it could be thrown into...

'Perfect' 100-Carat White Diamond Sells for $22M

Gem expert says transparency of auctioned jewel is like a 'pool of icy water'

(Newser) - An anonymous buyer is sporting some major bling after ponying up a tad over $22 million yesterday for a 100-carat diamond that Sotheby's likens to "the definition of perfection," the AP reports. It's the only white diamond of the classic emerald cut more than 100 carats...

$20 Gone With the Wind Dress Sells for $137K

James Tumblin found it on costume company's floor in the 1960s

(Newser) - James Tumblin's 300,000-piece collection of Gone With the Wind memorabilia started with a single gray dress with black appliques that lay crumpled on the floor of the Western Costume Company in Los Angeles in the 1960s. "A docent told me not to bother to pick it up,...

'One of Rarest Types of Titanic Collectible' Is Sold

Deckchair recovered from the Atlantic sells for $150K

(Newser) - After the Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912, the Mackay-Bennett was dispatched from Halifax to the scene to recover bodies; it pulled 306 corpses from the water, and ended up carrying 190 of them back to Canada. But according the the ship's logs, it also brought something...

Bye-Bye, 'American Pie': Manuscript Sold for $1.2M

Don McLean manuscript and notes scooped up at Christie's auction

(Newser) - Singer-songwriter Don McLean's original manuscript and notes to "American Pie" have been sold at auction for $1.2 million. McLean offered the wistful anthem that asks, "Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?" at Christie's today; the 16 pages included the original...

Winston Churchill's Blood Being Auctioned

A nurse kept it after British leader was hospitalized

(Newser) - Winston Churchill fractured a hip at age 87 and stayed in a London hospital, leaving behind a vial of his own blood. Now it's resurfaced for auction and could fetch hundreds of dollars, the Guardian reports. "It is impossible to put an accurate estimate on this unique piece...

Lock of Lincoln's Hair Sells for $25K

Boastful letter from assassin fetches $30K

(Newser) - A lock of hair taken from Abraham Lincoln's head by Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes soon after the president had been assassinated sold for $25,000 at a Texas auction—$5,000 less than a buyer paid for a letter from assassin John Wilkes Booth. The sale of a...

Warhol Bidding Is Behind 2014's $16B in Art Sales

Collectors paid more than $650M for Andy Warhol works alone

(Newser) - As it stands, the estimated $16 billion in art sales in 2014 is the second-highest in history, close on the heels of the $16.3 billion record set in 2011. And a sizable chunk is attributed to fierce competition among billionaires for works by Andy Warhol, 1,295 of which...

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