The highest amount of money paid for an autographed baseball is $191,200 (£103,766), when Heritage Auction Galleries sold a baseball signed in 1961 by legendary baseball player, Joe DiMaggio, and film star, Marilyn Monroe, (both USA) at an auction in Dallas, Texas, USA on 5 May 2006. The ball was acquired by an American photographer, Harry Harris in the 1960s. DiMaggio and Monroe had been married and divorced n 1954, but were seeking a reconciliation in 1961. The price is inclusive of the buyers’ premium.
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History of Auctioneering
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Truffles are subterranean fungi found in temperate European forests and command vast prices as much sought-after gastronomic delicacies. The most expensive one sold at auction was a white truffle (tuber magnatum pico) unearthed in Pisa, Italy, on 23 November 2007 by Cristiano and Luciano Savini (Both Italy). Weighing approximately 1.3 kg (2 lb 13 oz), it was bought by Stanley Ho bidding by phone via his wife Angela Leong (both China) for US$330,000 (£160,000) in a simultaneous auction between Macau, London and Florence, at the Grand Lisboa Hotel, Macau, China, on 1 December 2007.
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The most expensive watch sold at auction was a one-off stainless-steel edition of the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A, which achieved 31 million Swiss francs (£24,329,900; $33,649,500; €28,520,400) at the eighth Only Watch auction held at Christie’s in Geneva, Switzerland, on 9 November 2019. As this was a charity event, there were no auction fees or buyer’s premium.
In addition to its one-off steel casing, several other features made this watch unique, including golden opaline and ebony-black dials and an inscription on one of the dials of “The Only One”.
Of the total CHF 38,593,000 accrued at the eighth Only Watch charity auction, 99% of the proceeds went to funding research into muscular dystrophy.
This beat the previous record, also held by a Patek Philippe & Co. timepiece, of 23.22 million CHF (£15.1 m/$24 m), including buyer’s premium, paid for the unique Henry Graves Jr Supercomplication, a gold, double-dialled and double open-faced, minute-repeating clockwatch (pocketwatch) crafted by hand between 1925 and 1932 by (Switzerland). This was sold at the Important Watches sale at Sotheby’s in Geneva, Switzerland, on 11 November 2014.
This also beats the previous most expensive wristwatch: a Rolex Oyster Cosmograph Daytona, aka the “Paul Newman” Rolex, which sold to a private telephone bidder for $17,752,500 (£13,520,300), including buyer’s premium, on 26 October 2017 at Phillips Auctioneers in New York City, USA.
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The most expensive potato is an exclusive variety of potato bonnottes de Noirmoutier, grown on the island of Noirmoutier, off the west coast of France, which were sold at auction in Paris, France, for £;2,000 ($3,050) in April 1996. Grown in a special soil mixed with seaweed, only 20 tons were produced that year. The successful bidder took 4.5 kg (10 lb) of potatoes home with him, worth approximately £33 ($50) each.
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At Christie’s auction house in New York, USA, on 11 May 2015, Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti’s 1947 work L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) was sold for $141,285,000 (£91.4 m), the most ever paid for a sculpture at auction. The 180-cm bronze statue shows a man – tall and spindly (Giacometti’s trademark style) – with one arm extended in a pointing gesture. It is believed that the left arm was originally curled around a second figure, which Giacometti subsequently removed.
Created at short notice for an exhibition in New York in 1947, L’homme au doigt was reportedly made in a single night between midnight and 9 a.m. Giacometti produced a total of six casts of the piece, most of which are in museums around the world.
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The most valuable jacket sold at auction was the black and red calf leather jacket with winged shoulders worn by singer Michael Jackson (USA) in his renowned 1983 Thriller video, which was sold to Milton Verret of Austin, Texas, USA, for £1.1m ($1.8m) at a sale organised by Julien’s Auction in Beverly Hills, California, USA, on 26 June 2011.
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The most expensive crab sold at auction is JP¥5,000,000 (US$45,838.33; £35,711.47; €41,439.09), purchased by Kanemasa – Hamashita Shoten Co., Ltd. (Japan), sold at Tottori Prefectural Fisheries Cooperative Karo Branch, in Tottori, Tottori, Japan, on 7 November 2019.
The crab was Chionoecetes opilio, also known as snow crab, although it is called Matsuba crab in the region, its shell was 14.6 cm wide, weighed 1.24 kg. The price is the bid price at the auction excluding tax. The buyer paid 5,400,000 JPY including 8% of Japanese consumption tax. Tottori Prefectural Government brands their top quality Matsuba crab as “Itsukiboshi” (5 shining star crab), having strict criteria. Matsuba crabs are only available for 5 months of the year, from November until March.
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In 1952, Emma Bailey became the first woman auctioneer admitted to the National Auction Association. She held her first auction in Brattleboro, Vermont, on May 12, 1950, as a way to supplement her family’s income. She continued auctioneering for nearly 20 years and wrote a book about her experiences, entitled Sold to the Lady in the Green Hat (1962), before retiring in the late 1960s.
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Göteborgs Auktionsverk is an auction house founded in 1681, when the magistrate in Gothenburg sought permission from the government to conduct the auction business. It is the world’s second-oldest auction house in operation after the Stockholm Auction House founded in 1674. The auctions relate antiques, art, modern design, and crafts.
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Uppsala Auktionskammare was founded in 1731 and is the third oldest auction house in the world after Stockholms Auktionsverk and before Sotheby’s. It is also the third largest auction house in Sweden and organizes international quality auctions with Dutch & Flemish Old Masters, Russian, and Chinese art.
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