More Rare Stuff:

Titanic violin sale to the tune of a new £900,000 record

Titanic and auction house records tumbled in Wiltshire when the violin played by bandmaster Wallace Hartley as the doomed ship slid below the waves 101 years ago sold for £900,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium).

Bidding came down to a phone battle between a UK collector and a US counterpart, with the former holding on to clinch the sale at Henry Aldridge of Devizes on October 19.

The saleroom had estimated the violin at £200,000-300,000, partly based on the previous Titanic auction record also achieved by Henry Aldridge, for a very large, hand-drawn plan of the ship, used in the official inquiry after it sank, which was sold in May 2011 for £220,000.

Jesse Owens 1936 gold medal races to Olympic auction record

The Jesse Owens Munich 1936 gold medal sold for an Olympic record price at auction: $1,222,145 (£745,210), plus 20% buyer’s premium.

WHEN it comes to Olympic memorabilia, it doesn’t get much bigger than one of the four gold medals awarded to Jesse Owens for his remarkable performances at the 1936 Munich Games.

In winning the 100m, 200m, 4 x 100m and long jump he infuriated the watching Nazis who wanted the Games to be a showpiece of Aryan superiority.

The sale of his medal was always going to create massive worldwide interest and so it proved at SCP Auctions of California. At the end of an online auction on the morning of Sunday, December 8, it had been bought by Ron Burkle, US billionaire investor and co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey club, for a whopping $1,222,145 (£745,210), plus 20% buyer’s premium.

 

'Dueling Dinosaurs' Fossil Fails To Sell At Auction, Highest Bid Was For $5.5 Million

he "Dueling Dinosaurs" fossil could break records at auction on Tuesday. The fossil, unearthed in Montana, depicts two dinosaurs locked in deadly combat, and the auction house Bonhams attached an estimate of $7 million to $9 million. But despite plenty of hype and attention, the fossil failed to reach its premium and was not sold.

The "Dueling Dinosaurs" fossil did not sell at auction on Tuesday.  Reuters
The Associated Press reports the highest bid for the Dueling Dinosaur fossil was $5.5 million. The current record holder for highest price paid for a dinosaur fossil belongs to Sue, the T-Rex skeleton fossil that was sold for $7.6 million in 1997. This fossil, discovered in 2006, features fully articulated skeletons of a Nanotyrannus lancensis, known as a Dwarf Tyrant and a relative to Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a species of Chasmosaurine Ceratopsian, a Triceratops-like dinosaur.