The most expenisve clock sold at auction is the Rothschild Fabergé Clock Egg, which was made in 1902 by Peter Carl Fabergé. On 28 Nov 2007, this ornate timepiece sold for £8,980,500 (then $18,824,655) at Christies in London, UK, on 28 November 2007.
The clock has two spring barrels driving four gear-trains. The first powers the clock; the second the striking mechanism; the third set of gears power an elaborate gold enamelled cockerel that rises from a trapdoor in the top of the egg every hour, and moves as if to crow; the final gear train drives a tiny set of bellows that push air through a set of flutes, imitating the cockerel’s crow.
This clock is an example of a “Fabergé Egg”. These were highly ornate decorative pieces made by the House of Fabergé – a jeweler in St Petersburg, Russia – between 1885 and 1917. Most were designed by Peter Carl Fabergé (aka Karl Gustavovich Fabergé) and assembled by his “workmasters” Mikhail Perkhin and Henrik Wigström. They were masterpieces of the jeweler’s craft, requiring a year of work by highly skilled artisans and using only the finest materials (principally enameled gold and precious stones, but examples were made using cut-glass, jade and even finely turned wood).
The first was ordered by Tsar Alexander III as an easter present for his wife, and the Russian royal family would go on to be the primary customer for future examples (ordering 52 out of the approximately 69 made). Only eight of the eggs contained a clock movement, and the Rothschild Egg is one of only three with an automaton.
The Rothschild Egg is named for the person who commissioned it, Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild – a scion of the French branch of the wealthy Rothschild banking family. It was made as a gift for Germaine Halphen, to celebrate her engagement to Béatrice’s younger brother Édouard. It remained in the private collection of the Rothschild family, and was entirely unknown to Fabergé scholars until it went on sale in 2007. In 2014 it was donated to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.
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History of Auctioneering
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The most expensive football (soccer) shirt sold at auction is £7,142,500 ($8,958,124) and was achieved by Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ shirt worn at the 1986 World Cup quarter-final, which was sold at Sotheby’s, London, UK, on 4 May 2022.
The shirt was worn by Diego Maradona as he helped Argentina to knock out England in the quarter-final of the 1986 World Cup. The second goal that Maradona scored in that game was dubbed the ‘goal of the century’ in a FIFA poll in 2002. Maradona’s Argentina went on to knock out Belgium in the semi-finals and beat West Germany 3-2 in the final to lift the famous trophy.
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A painting by acclaimed landscape artist Joseph Turner, titled “Rome, from Mount Aventine”, set an auction record for the painter, selling for £30.3 million ($47.4 million) at Sotheby’s in London, UK, on 3 December 2014. The 92 cm x 125 cm (36 in x 50 in) canvas was based on Turner’s own drawings of the city he made in 1828. It was commissioned by the artist’s friend and patron, Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro.
Before this sale it had only changed hands once, in 1878, when the Fifth Earl of Rosebery bought it from Munro’s collection on his death.
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The highest price ever paid for a coin collection is $44,900,000 (£31,800,000) for the Eliasberg Collection sold over three auctions in 1982, 1996 and 1997 at Bowers and Merena Galleries, New Hampshire, USA. From the 1930s until 1950 Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. (1896-1976), a leading Baltimore banker and financier, attempted and accomplished what had never been tried before – to collect an example of each and every major United States coin variety from the 1793 half cent to the 1933 double eagle.
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The most amount of money paid for a mobile (cell) phone number is 10 million QAR (then £1.46 million; $2.75 million), by an anonymous Qatari bidder for the number 666-6666 during a charity auction hosted by Qatar Telecom in Doha, Qatar on 23 May 2006. QAR = Qatari Riyal
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The “Pizza Royale 2007”, created by Domenico Crolla (UK/Italy) for the premiere of Casino Royale (2007), was auctioned off for charity on eBay to an Italian lawyer for a record £2,150 (US$3,321. The toppings, inspired by Ian Fleming’s sophisticated tastes, include: -Lobster marinated in Louis VIII cognac (worth £1,395 (US$2,154) a bottle!)-Beluga caviar scented with Bollinger Champagne-Fillet steak marinated in Scotch Whisky-Smoked salmon infused with vodka martini-Edible gold leaf-White Italian truffles The pizza normally retails for £750 (US$1,158) at Bella Napoli/Italmania in Glasgow, UK.
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A vivid Fancy Orange diamond sold for 32.6 million Swiss francs ($35.5 million, £22 million) at Christie’s International auction house in Geneva, Switzerland, on 12 November 2013. The diamond had previously been with the same anonymous owner for at least 30 years. The 14.82-carat pear-shaped stone’s price works out as $2.4 million per carat, which is a record for any coloured diamond at a public sale. This beautiful stone is also the largest known vivid Fancy Orange – orange-coloured diamonds being far rarer than their white, pink and yellow counterparts.
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Endpapers are the double-page-size sheets of paper that link the inside cover of a book with its interior pages. The sheets are often highly illustrated and might be used on a number of publications. Endpaper artwork consisting of 34 small drawings of Tintin and his dog Snowy drawn by their creator Hergé (Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi) and depicting scenes from some of duo’s best-known adventures fetched a price of 2.5 million euros ($3.4 million), including fees, when sold at the Artcurial auction in Paris on 25 May 2014. The artwork featured in the endpapers in various Tintin books published between 1937 and 1958.
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On 14 December 2011, a pearl necklace known as “La Peregrina” once owned by actress Elizabeth Taylor sold at Christie’s, New York, USA, for $11,842,500 (£7,601,630), more than four times the estimated price. The 50.6-carat necklace, which dates from the 16th century, was a present to Taylor from her then husband Richard Burton, who bought it in an auction in 1969 for $37,000 (£15,400).
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Salvator Mundi (“Saviour of the World”; c. 1499–1510) by Leonardo da Vinci (Italy), sold for $450,312,500 (£343,033,000; €383,867,000), including buyer’s premium, at an auction held by Christie’s in New York City, USA, on 15 November 2017. This also makes it the most expensive painting sold overall, as of 1 February 2024.
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