James W. Heike, 83, of Mondovi, passed away Thursday, November 20, 2008 at Luther Hospital in Eau Claire, WI.\nHe was born on the home farm in the town of Canton on November 3, 1925 to Walter and Selina (Mueller) Heike. Jim attended the local one-room Tiffany School and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church where he was confirmed. After graduating from Mondovi High School at the age of 16, he attended the Wisconsin Agricultural School at UW Madison and then moved with his family and assumed operation of the current Heike Farm. He married Elizabeth “Betty” Moy on June 7, 1947. Three children were born to this marriage: Linda, Daniel and Heidi.\nIn 1958 Jim entered the auction business and later earned his real estate broker license. He was actively involved in real estate development in the Chippewa Valley. On August 3, 1961 both his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Linda, were killed in a tragic auto accident.\nOn August 25, 1962, Jim married B. Jean (Hanson) Robertson who brought Fred and Sarah into the family.\nJim was a community and civic-minded individual holding leadership positions in many organizations and businesses. They included board member and past president of the Zion Lutheran Church, Charter Member of the Mondovi Lions Club and recipient of the Melvin Jones Award; past board member and president of the Mondovi School District, the Chippewa Valley Realtors, the WI Auctioneers Association; past board member of the National Auctioneers Association, and Chairman of the Board of the Alliance Bank of Mondovi. In 2007 he received the Mondovi High School Hall of Fame Outstanding Alumni Award.\nJim had a lifelong appreciation for, and participation in musical activities including a vocalized dance band and a barbershop quartet. He enjoyed traveling, collecting antique John Deere tractors, operating his bulldozer, spending weekends at the Lake Pepin cottage and having early morning coffee with the gang.\nHe is survived by his wife, Jean Heike of Mondovi; four children, Dan (Lisa) Heike of Mondovi, Fred (Laura) Robertson, M.D. of Middleton, WI, Heidi (Harlan) Weber of Mondovi and Sarah Robertson of Eau Claire; eight grandchildren, Chris (Sara) Heike, Andrew (Greta) Heike, Nick Heike, Fred, Anna and Evan Robertson and Mike and Elsa Weber; three great-grandchildren, Ava, Julia and Carter Heike; a sister, Donna Armstrong of Eau Claire, WI; nieces, nephews and other relatives.\nHe was preceded in death by his first wife, Elizabeth; a daughter, Linda; his parents; an infant sister, and a brother-in-law, Robert Armstrong.
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History of Auctioneering
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Source: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-expensive-guitar-sold-at-auction
A wall calendar featuring sketches of costume designs for characters from Alice in Wonderland was sold to an anonymous bidder for £36,000 (then US$57,848; €39,804) as part of a fundraising auction held in aid of the Muir Maxwell Trust and the Fettes Foundation (both UK). The auction took place at The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party held on The Queen’s Lawn at Fettes College, Edinburgh, UK on 3 July 2011.
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Source: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/82585-most-expensive-calendar-sold-at-auction
The most expensive tweet sold at auction is a tweet originally posted by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (USA), which sold as a nonfungible token (NFT) for $2,915,835 (£2,101,470 / €2,449,150), on 21 March 2021.
The tweet – which holds the Guinness World Records title of First tweet – was first posted in 21 March 2006 and simply reads “just setting up my twttr”. Proceeds of the auction were donated to charity.
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A baseball was sold at Guernsey’s auction house, New York City, USA for $3,054,000 (£1,874,655) including commission, to Todd McFarlane on 12 January 1999. The ball was the one that was hit by Mark McGwire of the St Louis Cardinals for his 70th and final home run in his record-setting season in 1998.
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The most expensive banknote sold at auction is an 1890 United States $1,000 Treasury Note, which sold for $3.29 million (£2.6 million) at Heritage Auctions (USA) on 10 January 2014.
The note is known as the “Grand Watermelon” note, due to the three prominent zeros on the reverse that resemble the fruit. The notes are extremely rare, and only three specimens are available to collectors.
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An armchair made by Irish-born designer Eileen Gray around 1917 to 1919 and belonging to Yves Saint Laurent (France), sold at auction for €21.9 million (then £19.4 million; US$28 million). The buyer, Cheska Vallois (France), was the same dealer who originally sold the chair to the French designer in the 1970s. The auction took place at Christie’s in Paris, France, on 24-26 February 2009.
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The most expensive camera sold at auction is a prototype Leica 35mm film camera, which was sold to a private collector from Asia for €2.40 million (£2.13 million; $2.95 million), at the WestLicht Photographica auction in Vienna, Austria, on 10 March 2018. The early model, known as the Leica 0-series No.122, was one of just 25 produced for testing in 1923 – two years before the first Leica camera went on sale to the public. The starting price was €400,000 (£356,000; $492,000).
The previous record holder was another Leica 0-series No.122 camera, which sold at the same auction house on 12 May 2012 for €2.16 million (£1.73 million; $2.8 million).
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The most expensive flag sold at auction is an American Revolutionary War Battleflag (1776–1779), which went to an anonymous buyer on 14 June 2006 for $12,336,000 (£6,707,264), including buyer’s premium, at Sotheby’s in New York, USA. The regimental standard of the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons was captured by British cavalry officer, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton at Pound Ridge, Westchester County, New York, USA, on 2 July 1779 and subsequently shipped to England, where it remained until it was put up for auction by one of his descendants. It is the earliest surviving American flag of any kind with a field of 13 red and white stripes.
The flag was one of four rare Revolutionary War battle flags sold at the auction: three other flags, from a Virginia regiment, thought to have been captured at the Battle of Waxhaws, near the border of North and South Carolina, on 29 May 1780, sold for $5.05 million.
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The most expensive hat sold at auction is a black felt bicorn hat that belonged to the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). It sold for €1,932,000 (£1,687,119; $2,114,284) including premium at the Osenat auction house in Fontainebleau, France, on 19 November 2023.
The hat, which was estimated to sell at €600,000-800,000, was last owned by businessman Jean-Louis Noisiez, who died in 2022, and has now been purchased by an anonymous buyer. The final hammer price was likely higher than expected as a result of the pending release of a biopic film about the French emperor, directed by Ridley Scott, premiering in November 2023.
According to Osenat, the former French emperor owned 120 hats, yet only about 16 are known to still exist today. This particular bicorn was used by Bonaparte in the middle of the Empire, around the 1806–15 period.
Previously, the most expensive hat sold at auction was another formerly owned by Napoleon. It sold for €1,884,000 (£1,498,496; $2,348,594) on 15 November 2014, also at the Osenat auction house. It was sold by the Grimaldi family, the rulers of the Principality of Monaco, and purchased by an anonymous collector from South Korea.
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By 9 May1997, works of art by Pablo Picasso (Spain) had been sold at auction no fewer than 3,579 times. The total value of these sales has been £668,817,963.
Picasso was an artistic pioneer with a hand in every art movement of the century.
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