Michael Jackson's famous white glove sold for $350,000 at a memorabilia auction on Saturday, soaring far past pre-sale estimates, while a black jacket he wore during a 1989 world tour fetched $225,000.
I'm a low-down, broke-ass college student with a gold-mine of adventure stories and a dream to be known as that girl who auctioned off her friendship on eBay. Help me out or simply watch my journey unfold!
What could be the last autograph signed by President Kennedy was sold recently at an auction of items linked to his assassination in Texas.
Kennedy reportedly signed the front page of the Dallas Morning News, which contained a photo of him and the first lady and a preview of their arrival that day in Dallas.
A Dallas woman handed the president the newspaper and he signed it for her, according to Heritage Auctions, the company that sold the item. The date of his assassination, which came about two hours later, was on the front page of that paper near his signature.
"It's chillingly historic because it documents the day, documents the location and it's certainly one of the last signatures of John Kennedy," Doug Norwine, a director at Heritage Auctions told CNN affiliate KDAF.
The newspaper was purchased by Joe Maddalena, president and owner of Profiles in History in Calabassas, California for $39,000.
He received his purchase Thursday and "immediately insured it for a quarter million dollars."
Maddalena told CNN he was prepared to pay six figures for it, but he would not say just how high he would have bid. He said he got an "impressive piece of history at a bargain price."
A second attempt to sell a crypt on top of Marilyn Monroe's final resting place has failed to raise a single bid, despite being located in a celebrity filled Los Angeles cemetery.
A widow is trying to sell her husbands crypt to pay off the mortgage on her home and move him to another plot adjacent to the one intended for herself.
A previous bid of $4.6 million made in August fell through.
An eBay auction planned by abortion opponents to raise money for the man accused of killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller will not be permitted, company officials said Tuesday.
“Based on the details we know about the anticipated listings, we believe these would violate our policy regarding offensive material,” the company said in a statement to The Kansas City Star. “EBay will not permit the items in question to be posted to the eBay site, and they will be removed if they are posted.”
The announcement came the same day that Tiller’s family implored eBay to prevent the auction.
“These materials contain hate messages, glorify violence against abortion doctors who provide constitutionally protected medical services, and instruct on means of violence, including bombing, of abortion clinics,” said Lee Thompson, an attorney for the Tiller family, in a letter sent to eBay on Tuesday and approved by Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller.
“We urge you to deny access to the resources of eBay for this reprehensible and vile ‘auction.’ ”
The auction was intended to raise money for the defense of Scott Roeder, who is charged with first-degree murder in Tiller’s death and is scheduled to go on trial in January. Currently, Roeder is being represented by public defenders.
Roeder’s supporters are encouraging him to use a “necessity defense,” saying that Tiller’s killing on May 31 was an act of justifiable homicide. Other anti-abortion activists charged with violent crimes have tried to use such a defense, but with little success.
Those working on the fundraiser said banning the auction was a violation of their rights.
More @ linkAn eBay auction planned by abortion opponents to raise money for the man accused of... more
In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property market was being picked over by speculators and mostly discarded.
After five hours of calling out a drumbeat of "no bid" for properties listed in an auction book as thick as a city phone directory, the energy of the county auctioneer began to flag.
"OK," he said. "We only have 300 more pages to go."
There was tired laughter from investors ready to roll the dice on a city that has become a symbol of the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, pressures on the industrial middle-class and intractable problems for the urban poor.
On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.
Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.
The tax foreclosure auction by Wayne County authorities also stood as one of the most ambitious one-stop attempts to sell off urban property since the real-estate market collapse.
Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days.
The county had no estimate of how much was raised by the auction, a second attempt to sell property that had failed to find buyers for the full amount of back taxes in September.
The unsold parcels add to an expanding ghost town within the once-vibrant town known worldwide as the Motor City.
Critics say the poor showing at the auction underscores the limits of using a market-based system to clean up property tax problems. They say the system has enriched a few but failed to deliver a way for Detroit to staunch its dwindling population and could worsen the vacancy crisis.
One proposed alternative would have officials take control of the tax foreclosure process through a land bank program of the kind being used to revitalize the nearby city of Flint.
The stakes in the debate are rising.
The number of Detroit properties in tax foreclosure has more than tripled since 2007 and seems certain to rise further. The lots for sale last week represented arrears from only 2006, well before the worst of the downturn for U.S. automakers.
Detroit, already stuck with a $300 million budget deficit, is responsible in the meantime for cutting the weeds and responding to fire calls for thousands more abandoned lots.
Many potential homeowners that Detroit desperately needs said they felt penalized by the auction process.
They mostly found themselves outbid by deeper-pocketed investors from California and New York who were in a race to claim the auction book's relatively few livable properties.
Dozens of potential bidders, mostly local residents, were turned away on the first day of the auction by deputies after they failed to meet the morning deadline for registration.In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property... more
The little chair that Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have sat on before his army was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo is expected to fetch £15,000 pounds at auction.
The diminutive French dictator is said to have rested on the unremarkable, small wooden seat in 1815 at Courcelles in Belgium, 22 miles from the battlefield.
He stayed at the home of a family and the daughter of the owner, Pauline Cambier, kept the chair carefully, aware of who had perched upon it.
It comes with two letters of provenance, one from a friend of Cambier, stating how she had often told him about its history.
He adds: "She had always kept it with greatest care."
Featuring eight stretcher rungs, a rush seat and seven spindles, plus decorative features, it is at odds with the grandeur of the self-styled Emperor who sat on it.
It has had several owners and now is to be sold at auction and collectors from around Europe are expected to bid on it.
Despite his losing the Battle of Waterloo and being humiliatingly sent to exile on St Helena, Napoleon is still revered in France.The little chair that Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have sat on before his army was... more
A Southampton artist's entire collection of paintings, which were inspired by rock legends The Who, is to be sold in an internet auction.
Forty five paintings by John Davis, from Shirley, who was killed in a car crash in 2006, will be auctioned later.
His connection with the band began in 1969 when he painted 20 pictures inspired by the band's album, Tommy.A Southampton artist's entire collection of paintings, which were inspired by rock... more
The US comedian Drew Carey has bid $100,000 for the Twitter account @Drew.
The sale is brainchild of Drew Olanoff, a Twitter user who has used the internet to encourage a positive approach to living with cancer since being diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in May. He has invited bids in excess of $10,000.
Would you pay this much for a Twitter account?The US comedian Drew Carey has bid $100,000 for the Twitter account @Drew.
The sale... more
The great Ingmar Bergman sale has begun. Sweden's legendary film-maker said in his will that all his possessions should be auctioned off to avoid creating an "emotional hullabaloo". On Monday many were sold to the highest bidder in an event held at auction house Bukowskis in Stockholm, which took a total of nine hours and raised more than 17.9m kronor (£2.2m).
Among the notable items that went under the hammer were a chipped chess set missing a white king and believed to have been used in The Seventh Seal. It sold for 1m kronor (£120,000), far exceeding its 10,000-15,000 kronor (£1,200-£1,840) valuation.
In total, 337 items were sold. They included Bergman's Golden Globe awards, his writing desk, and his wastepaper basket. A red-painted, evil-shaped jumping jack – given to Bergman by his grandson Ola – went for 29,000 kronor (£3,550).
The auction's highest price fetched was 1.03m kronor (£126,100) for a wooden model of Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre, which Bergman ran in the mid-1960s, with a tiny model of the director sitting inside it.
Bukowskis spokesperson, Charlotte Bergstrom, said hammer prices were expected to be higher than estimates, but had still exceeded expectations. "Because it's him, Ingmar Bergman, it inflates the prices a bit, of course," she added. Bukowskis received more than 8,000 visitors and the auction house's website tallied more than 5,000 hits a day from 116 countries in the four days before the auction, she said.
The sale is not over yet. The film-maker, who died in July 2007, also asked for his 84-acre estate on the small Baltic island of Fårö to be auctioned off, much to the chagrin of Bergman enthusiasts who had hoped it might be preserved as a museum. Its sale is being managed separately by Christie's Great Estates in London. All proceeds from both sales will go to the director's family.The great Ingmar Bergman sale has begun. Sweden's legendary film-maker said in his... more
The average wedding costs £19,000, but this couple managed to pick up a entire reception at their dream venue for just over fifty quid.
Colette Palin was the highest bidder for the wedding package which was put on the site following a last minute cancellation.
Jason Petty, the general manager at Buckatree Hall, near Telford, Shropshire said, "We put the wedding on eBay knowing full well it might go for less than it its worth, but we always said we would honour it no matter what it eventually went for."
Bet even they were surprised it went for as little as £51 but how nice to see they honoured it.The average wedding costs £19,000, but this couple managed to pick up a entire... more
A bejeweled white glove Michael Jackson tossed to an Australian fan more than a decade ago sold at auction Sunday for 57,600 Australian dollars ($48,400), almost twice the estimated selling price.
(TheHuffingtonPost, 2009, September 6, par.1)
Warwick Stone, a buyer for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, beat out five other bidders for the late King of Pop's glove, said Charlotte Stanes, spokeswoman for the Melbourne auction house Bonhams and Goodman. The estimated selling price before the auction was AU$30,000.
(TheHuffingtonPost, 2009, September 6, par.2)
Bonhams and Goodman said it was the first auction of a Michael Jackson glove since his death on June 25 this year at age 50.
(TheHuffingtonPost, 2009, September 6, par.4)
[IMAGE: allshowsblog.com]A bejeweled white glove Michael Jackson tossed to an Australian fan more than a decade... more
Every time British businessman Robert Charlton cheated on his wife, he bought her some extravagant jewelry to try to make amends. After 26 years of marriage, long-suffering Elizabeth Charlton had more than 40 glittering pieces.
(Master, F., & Casciato, P., 2009, August 18, par.2)
Charlton's infidelity cost him nearly 300,000 pounds ($492,400) it emerged last month, when his daughter auctioned off the late couple's jewelry collection.
(Master, F., & Casciato, P., 2009, August 18, par.3)
Over the course of his romances, Charlton, who died in 1974, bought his wife antique diamond earrings, bracelets, rings and necklaces. One piece, a riviere necklace made up of 54 diamonds, was the most expensive item auctioned, fetching 50,000 pounds.
(Master, F., & Casciato, P., 2009, August 18, par.5)Every time British businessman Robert Charlton cheated on his wife, he bought her some... more
Hard to believe that eBay is 10 years old today. But good to hear that it's first seller a user from Scotland is still active. The first thing sold on the UK site was a Scorpions CD on July 30th 1999 which went for £2.89
There's now 964 million items sold that's the equvalent to 16 items for every person in Britain
I sold a bathroom sink through eBay. What's the wierdest thing you've managed to sell?Hard to believe that eBay is 10 years old today. But good to hear that it's first... more
I looove this video- funny, well-done, the works. Originally submitted to Current in March of 2008:
Ebay-certified "professors" teach people how best to buy and sell items on Ebay. VC2 producer Rachael Joy will take lessons from the Ebay "guru" in LA and attempt to re-sell a vintage purse that once failed to get even a single bid when she put it up previously on Ebay. We'll also hear stories from the guru's former students, as they regale us with the odd and quirky items they've been able to acquire and get rid of on Ebay.I looove this video- funny, well-done, the works. Originally submitted to Current in... more
One of John Lennon's guitars from the early years of his Beatles career sold for £205,250 at auction yesterday, almost doubling its £100,000 - 150,000 estimate.
Lennon bought the 1958 Hofner Senator guitar from Hessy's Music store in Liverpool and auctioneers believe he kept it at home for song-writing purposes.
It was accompanied by a fax of a 1982 letter from George Harrison saying the guitar was one of Lennon's first guitars.
Neil Roberts, head of Popular Culture for Christie's auction house said they were overwhelmed with bidders on the phones and online as well those in attendance.One of John Lennon's guitars from the early years of his Beatles career sold for... more
California State Assemblyperson Paul Cook spoke to a group of supporters of the CDC in their effort to stop the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power from bringing new transmission lines through the High Desert.
As part of the new Geo-thermal project near the Salton Sea, the LADWP has proposed routes for the transmission lines that will be needed to bring the energy to Los Angeles. The CDC opposes all but the route along the I-10 corridor.
Pappy and Harriet's hosted this silent auction and Hootenanny in Pioneertown. Music by Rojer Arnold and The Jackie Young Band.California State Assemblyperson Paul Cook spoke to a group of supporters of the CDC in... more
The nude photo was bought for $19,600 by an anonymous bidder Thursday at a Berlin auction house. The image is one of 10 prints of a nude Bruni lounging in an unmade bed captured by American fashion photographer Pamela Hanson in 1994.The nude photo was bought for $19,600 by an anonymous bidder Thursday at a Berlin... more
