Palm Beach Modern Auctions received a lot of press in the mainstream media in the past few weeks for their red jacket attributed to the classic James Dean film, Rebel Without A Cause. The $400,000-$600,000 pre-sale estimate would imply that the jacket must have been worn by the star during production of the film… Perhaps the provenance supplied by the auction house was unconvincing, since it failed to sell at auction. [Read more…]
Maybe most don’t pay enough attention to notice or care, but I’ve had an increasingly challenging time trying to make sense of the numbering convention employed by Profiles in History in naming their auction events. It reminds me a little bit of Microsoft and how they name their gaming consoles (Xbox to Xbox 360 to Xbox One) or even their PC operating systems (Windows 95 to 98 to ME to 2000 to XP to Vista to 7 to 8 to 10)…. In the early days, it was pretty straight forward with Profiles, with their “Collector’s Ransom” (and later, “Hollywood Auction”) events going from 1 to 2 to 3, etc. At some point, they started folding in non-Hollywood auctions (Animation, Historical Documents, Rare Books and Manuscripts) and special one off events into the same numbering sequence… In any event, I’ve taken the time to try to make sense of it for my own records, and I thought I would share the results below in the event it would be helpful to others, or for others to suggest corrections… [Read more…]
As noted in my interview with Troika Brodsky, the owner of the Lord of the Rings collection consigned to Julien’s Auctions, we have been friends for around a decade, so I was particularly interested in this auction. Julien’s Auctions held their “The Trilogy Collection: Props and Costumes from Middle-Earth” sale event this past Thursday, which featured 92 lots of original production assets from the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films made by Peter Jackson. I went down to Beverly Hills to attend the auction, so I thought I would share some thoughts and observations on the sale. [Read more…]
I have been traveling for the past week, so did not personally watch the latest Profiles in History sale (“Hollywood Auction 53”) live, but received a number of e-mails and texts from others in this art market commenting about the overall “lackluster” and “disappointing” results of the event, though there were a few surprises and stand out pieces (such as the Lord of the Rings Legolas bow going for $372,000 with Buyer’s Premium, Kate Winslet’s dress from Titanic selling for $330,000 with BP, and an X-Wing model from Star Wars realizing approximately $270,000 with BP). Based on a spreadsheet compiled by a friend, focusing on Lots 433-902 (the second half of the catalog, following classic Hollywood photos, etc.), about 40% of the items were not sold. [Read more…]
Now that I am back in the States, I thought I would take the time to review the results of the overwhelming number entertainment memorabilia auctions that took place throughout the month of December. Interestingly, while I personally met with a number of participants in our field while traveling in England and France this month, the one unsolicited and seemingly universal topic brought up by all was the question of “the Bubble”. Is there a bubble? If so, what are the contributing factors, and when and how will it burst? And what would the consequences be on our art market? Since the results of these high profile auctions speak to these notions and related speculation, I thought it would make sense to frame my results analysis in this discussion. [Read more…]
As reported over recent weeks, Antique Helper offered a collection of mostly Superman-related costumes and memorabilia yesterday, the descriptions of which included caveats and disclaimers as to provenance and authenticity. Generally, the auction results for the costumes highlighted in the prior articles were lackluster, in terms of comparable confirmed authentic examples of the same style and type of wardrobe pieces. [Read more…]
Aaron, a collector who I’ve been acquainted with, has launched a new website which highlights historical auction results and photos, along with other features. [Read more…]
Two years ago, I published a favorable review of the website, www.propcatalogs.com (see Website Review: PropCatalogs.com). Since, the curator of the database has closed down the online service, and made the same material available for purchase on DVD-ROM. This is therefore an update to the original review, keeping these changes in mind. [Read more…]