Table of contents:
Video: The strangest lots sold at auctions: Forehead spot, Elvis hair, etc
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Each item is worth what they are willing to pay for it. This rule of modern trading becomes especially evident when you get acquainted with online auctions. They can buy both real works of art and truly crazy things. In this review - a selection of the strangest lots, which, nevertheless, found their buyers, ready to shell out hefty sums for them.
The most expensive
It is interesting that today anything you want can be put up for sale. For example, one American citizen decided to put up an advertising space for sale … on her forehead. For money, she was ready to decorate the most visible part of her face with a tattoo of any content. A serious battle was fought for such an original lot, and two days later it was won by one well-known casino. For 10 thousand dollars, an enterprising woman turned herself into a "walking advertisement" for the rest of her life. It should be noted that the lady pursued the most noble goals - the proceeds went to the education of her son at a prestigious college.
Another woman in 2009 tried to sell the name of her unborn child. More precisely, the right to this very name. Before giving birth to her second offspring, she posted a lot on eBay with an unusual offer. Oddly enough, he aroused great interest among buyers, and in a few days the price reached 41 thousand dollars. The administration of the service launched a real war, trying to prohibit such a peculiar trade, and in the end they managed to prove the illegality of this approach. The lot was removed, and the deal was not completed, which may have saved the kid from a long participation in another advertising campaign.
Musician James Blunt got down to business even more creatively and put up for auction … his own sister. In fact, this story looks much more decent than it might seem at first. The matter was that the girl urgently needed to get to Ireland for the funeral of relatives, and in the announcement James wrote that "the lady is in trouble and needs the help of a knight." The knight was found very quickly, took off the noble lady in a private helicopter, and then also married her as an honest man, so everything ended very romantic.
Star dust
Of course, if we talk about follies, then the first place, of course, can be awarded to fans who idolize their idols and are ready for real feats for their sake. Among the most famous "rarities" sold through online auctions are the following:
- Britney Spears chewing gum for $ 216. The waiter from the London restaurant, serving the star and who managed to preserve this "relic", showed ingenuity.
- A can with the same air that Angelina Jolly and Brad Pitt breathed out. It is difficult to say how the "sampling" happened in this case, but the fan who bought the jar for $ 530 was probably very pleased. In any case, the idea of such a product looks brilliant.
- One of the most famous and expensive lots of this kind was the toast, half-eaten by Justin Timberlake. An unknown fan paid just over three thousand dollars for it! When the stars finally realize that any leftovers from their meals can be sold so dearly, the need for concerts will probably simply disappear.
- In 2012, a piece of a famous couple's wedding cake was sold for almost a thousand dollars. It would not be so surprising if it were not for the wedding of Queen Elizabeth of England and Prince Philip. At the time of the sale, the sweet lot was already 65 years old, but, apparently, the queen really knows the secret of eternal vigor, and she once tried it on this piece of cake.
- However, the following lots from the point of view of ordinary people look even less attractive. For example, a used handkerchief was sold to Scarlett Johansson at a charity auction for $ 5,300. The high price is due to the fact that the star not only used it for its intended purpose, but also signed a "rarity".
- You can, of course, argue for a long time whether the kidney stone of the actor from "Star Trek" William Shatner cost 25 thousand dollars, and Winston Churchill's denture - 24 thousand, but once bought, then it is so. However, everyone was outdone by a fan who laid out 115 thousand dollars for a handful of Elvis Presley's hair. By the way, this lot has been sold many times. Just one hair from Elvis's head was sold at an auction in Barcelona for $ 1,833! The singer’s hairdresser collected and preserved this value. It is possible that if the question of cloning a star ever comes up, then this purchase will indeed be valuable.
Large purchases
For those who are not on trifles and love serious acquisitions, there may also be suitable lots at auctions. For example, a few years ago a fragment of the Eiffel Tower was sold for 220 thousand dollars. A small spiral staircase was part of a temporary structure that Gustave Eiffel climbed in 1889 to inaugurate this famous building.
The whole city was put up for auction in 2002. Well, or rather, a town, because only 25 people permanently live in Bridgeville. The town is located 400 kilometers from San Francisco, and there was a buyer for it for 1,770,000 dollars. It is interesting that, once sold, the city has since then been resold twice, but the buyers in each case remained unknown.
Recommended:
What statuettes are sold at the price of an apartment, or How much is Soviet porcelain at foreign auctions
The love for porcelain was inherited by the Soviet inhabitants "by inheritance" from the old-regime fashion. The young Soviet state quickly enough transferred this hobby onto the rails of communist propaganda and started the production of porcelain figurines on new topics. Now, a hundred years later, Soviet collective farmers, athletes, heroes of Russian fairy tales and dancers in the outfits of the Union republics are becoming a rarity, so individual copies can be very expensive
10 most expensive masterpieces of art sold at auctions in 2015
The season of major sales has already ended, but the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s will sum up the results only at the beginning of 2016. Nevertheless, even today we can talk about the works of art, which were the most expensive in the past year
Paintings by Russian artists of the 20th century, sold at world auctions for millions
Almost all art divas of the first half of the 20th century, who were originally from Russia, chose Paris as their haven for life and creation. Some of them painted their pictures literally for food, others - from an excess of energy, there were also those who worked tirelessly to drown out the pain that tormented body and soul. But all these women left an indelible mark on the history of painting not only with their artistic heritage, but also with the vicissitudes of fate
Cats for millions: 6 paintings with purrs, sold at auctions for fabulous sums
Modern art connoisseurs pay tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars at auction for Picasso's cubic women, for Malevich's Suprematist compositions, for Kandinsky's abstract painting. However, there are canvases in the art of painting, for which collectors are also ready to pay a considerable sum. These are paintings depicting cute cats that have become favorites of many people. This review contains the top 6 most expensive paintings with cats sold at world art market auctions
Art rating: 20 most expensive paintings by Russian artists that were sold at auctions
At the auction of Russian art in 2004, 26 works by Ivan Aivazovsky, the most expensive artist sold, grossed $ 6.7 million. A few years later, this record was challenged by a whole list of paintings by Russian artists of the first magnitude. According to the results of the sale in 2011, for the first time, the works of Ilya Repin, as a representative of classical painting, entered the top ten most expensive paintings by Russian artists. In this review, an art rating of the most expensive paintings by Russian artists