Contributors
Rising Value of Unrestored Cars
By Malcolm Welford, Vintage Car Specialist
Rarest Montblanc Pens At Bonhams
May 17, 2012Pen collector Mel Wilmore carried his passion for Montblanc writing instruments to another level. To protect his valuable collection, for example, he had a secret pen room, constructed in his estate. Next month in New York, the rare and valuable pens are coming out of wraps, as Bonhams sells what it’s calling the greatest single collection of Montblanc pens ever offered at auction. The top-rated lot is a 75th Anniversary Solid Gold Skeleton Fountain Pen and Watch set estimated at $60,000-$75,000.
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$4m Coin Found in SF Bookstore
May 17, 2012A tourist browsing in a San Francisco bookstore came across a coin glued to a page in a souvenir book. The page described the San Francisco mint where the coin was struck, an 1870-S $3 piece. Only 2 were minted. As one of the rarest American coins in existence it’s expected to sell for between $2m-$4m next month at an auction in Georgia.
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Royal “Sancy” Diamond Draws Glittering $9.7m
May 16, 2012When Marie de Medici was crowned Queen of France in 1610, she wore a 35ct diamond known as the Beau Sancy. After having been passed down through generations of European royalty, the famous diamond sold at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva yesterday for $9.7m, more than twice its $2m-$4m estimate.
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Museum Buys Berguets For Record Price
May 15, 2012Strikingly uncomplicated in appearance, a gold pocket watch with a sweep hand and two movements smashed records for a Breguet at Christie’s Geneva auction yesterday when it sold for $4.7m. The Breguet Museum in Paris beat out all bidders. The museum also bought a second watch for $2.8m, the second highest price ever paid for a Breguet.
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Record $6.7m Ruby At Safra Sale
May 15, 2012When Lily Safra entered the salesroom after Christie’s charity auction of 70 items from her jewelry collection, she received a standing ovation. It was no surprise, given the evening’s results. Led by the $6.7m a Dubai buyer paid for a 32.08ct Burmese ruby and diamond ring—a new world auction record for a ruby—the Geneva sale realized almost $38m, which will benefit 32 charities.
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Which Came First, Elephant Bird Or The Egg?
May 14, 2012Eons ago birds ruled the earth, and the “Elephant Bird” really did exist in Madagascar. Weighing a half-ton and standing 10-feet tall, the flightless birds were hunted to extinction 300-years ago, but a few eggs remain. One will be sold at Christie’s extinct artifacts auction next week in London. It’s 3-feet around and a foot tall. Photo compares it to a chicken egg. High estimate is $25,000.
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What’s The World’s Most Expensive Camera?
May 14, 2012An anonymous buyer paid a record $2.8m for a 1923 Leica camera this past weekend in Vienna. The ultra-rare O-Series was one of just 12 surviving test versions that Leica produced before introducing the series commercially in 1925. The final price was some 7 times higher than the estimate.
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Images Of Scott’s Expedition To South Pole
May 11, 2012Herbert George Ponting was a pioneering photographer of polar landscapes, who accompanied Captain Robert Falcon Scott on his ill-fated Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole (1910-1913). During his 14 months with Scott, Ponting took over 1,000 photographs documenting every aspect of the journey. Three of these images, each of which is estimated at $4,800-$8,000, will be featured at Bonhams Photography Sale on May 17th in London.
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Bacon, Weiwei, Lichtenstein, Warhol Score At Sotheby’s
May 10, 2012Money was flowing at Sotheby’s last night when paintings by Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon both went for just under $45m, and a Warhol double image silkscreen of Elvis Presley drawing a six shooter sold for $37m.
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Rothko Sells For Record $86.9m
May 10, 2012Christie’s had been expecting a huge price for Mark Rothko’s 1961 canvas, “Orange, Red, Yellow.” Accordingly, the painting carried an estimate of $35m-$45m into the auction house’s sale of postwar and contemporary art this week in New York. As it happened, Christie’s expectations were conservative. On Tuesday evening it sold for almost $87m, the highest price ever paid for a work of its category.
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The Most Beautiful Book On Fish
May 09, 2012Between 1785 and 1797, a Frenchman named Markus-Eliezer Bloch produced a monumental work of six volumes devoted to some 1500 species of fish. Hailed as the most beautiful book on fish ever published, it contains beautiful color plates, some heightened with silver to produce the sheen of scales, by a variety of artists. A first edition of the book from the Angling Library of Alan Jarvis is the centerpiece of a sale at Bonhams on May 22nd in London, where it’s expected to realize $64,600-$81,000.
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The Most Valuable Bentley Ever Sold?
May 08, 2012The late George Daniels was renowned as a master watchmaker, but his reputation as a vintage car collector was also substantial. Next month Bonhams will sell eight cars and two motorcycles from his collection at its Goodwood auction. The jewel of the group is a 1929-32 Bentley 4 ½-litre supercharged single-seater Bentley, once owned by former Le Mans champion Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin. If, as expected, it sells for $6.3m, the car will become the most expensive Bentley ever sold.
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Muller Watch Is REALLY Complicated
May 08, 2012Christie’s will auction the world’s most complicated watch, a Franck Muller 2010 creation with 1,483 components, 99 jewels, and 36 functions, (“complications”). It’s called the Aeternitas Mega 4 and has never before been offered at auction. Estimate runs from $600,000 to $1.2m. The first one sold by Muller to a Colorado man went for $2.2m. He flew all the way to Monte Carlo to pick it up.
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What Are The Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold At Auction?
May 07, 2012When Edvard Munch’s “Scream” sold for $119.1m at Sotheby’s last week, it established a new world record for most expensive painting ever sold at auction. In these times of newly minted billionaires from Asia, Russia, and the Mideast, however, records don’t stand for long. During the past eight years, a variety or works have worn the crown. Read more about the paintings that drew the top ten prices ever paid at auction.
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Matisse Holds His Own Against Cezanne
May 07, 2012Cezanne got all the press at Christie’s modern and impressionists auction last week in New York, but the legacy of Henri Matisse more than held its own with the sale of his painting of a pot of pivoines (peonies) that went for $19.1m, $7m more than the high estimate. At the same sale Cezanne’s watercolor study for “The Card Players,” sold for the same price.
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