John Wayne auction nets £3.5m… and a cowboy hat went for £77,000
An auction of more than 700 costumes, scripts, awards and memorabilia from the estate of film star John Wayne brought in £3.5 million at the saleroom, organisers said yesterday.
The sale included items such as Wayne’s eye patch from the 1969 movie True Grit, a holster and gun belt from the film El Dorado, and his last driving licence, said Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles.
The green wool beret Wayne wore in The Green Berets went for £115,000 and a cowboy hat worn in Big Jake And The Cowboys fetched £77,000.
Since the actor's death in 1979, most of the items from his estate had been sitting in a warehouse in California, gathering dust. But his children decided to sell the treasures off.
The sale, staged by Heritage Auctions, was held at the Hyatt Century Plaza and included bids that made online.
Wayne's son Ethan, 49, president of John Wayne Enterprises, explained in a press released why the family decided to auction off the items.
He said: 'My father's fans were very important to him. He was open and accessible to them, and making these items accessible to the public is something that feels right.
'Museums have large collections of my father's personal property, and our family has had a chance to select and keep items sentimental to us. There is no need to keep this memorabilia locked away when it can be enjoyed by his fans.'
Before the treasure trove of items went up for sale, they were shown off at travelling exhibitions in Dallas, New York and Los Angeles.
A portion of the auction proceeds will be used by the John Wayne Cancer Foundation to help fund treatment, research and education.
Wayne worked for five decades in the film industry and appeared in more than 150 movies. He died from stomach cancer at the age of 72.
Source: Daily Mail Website Reading glasses Hitler tried to keep secret set to fetch £5,000 at auction
They were made for him as his eyesight began to fail as the Second World War dragged on.
But few photographs of Adolf Hitler in his reading glasses exist because he regarded them as a weakness and believed it would undermine his authority with his subjects.
Sixty-six years after the end of the war, however, the glasses are in the news as they come up for sale in a major auction of the Nazi leader’s possessions.
Rare sight: Adolf Hitler pictured using reading glasses at the breakfast table - he regarded their use as a weakness. It is not known if these are the exact pair set to fetch £5,000 at auction
To compensate for not having to use glasses as a result of his worsening presbyopia, from 1933 onwards he had all his speeches and official documents written on a special typewriter with large print and huge line spaces.
Expected to fetch £5,000, the glasses come in their original black leather case with dark blue velvet embossed with the name of the Ruhnke opticians in Berlin which made them for him under great secrecy.
The spectacles form part of a large cache of Hitler memorabilia going under the hammer later this month. Other objects include a large silver cigarette case with a starting price of £9,500.
Hitler was a non-smoker but the cigarettes were offered to visiting dignitaries at his Reich Chancellery in Berlin before Allied bombers turned it into brickdust.
An eagle clutching a swastika flanked by Hitler’s initials is on the lid.
Frameless lenses: The reading glasses, mostly free of scratches, and shallow, black leather case lined with dark blue velvet and manufacturer's inscription 'Optiker Ruhnke' on the lid.
Some £4,600 is the starting bid for a lamp from his apartment in Munich at Prinzregentplatz - today a police station - and five pieces of cutlery with his personal monogram have a reserve price of £1,700.
Most serious collectors have their eyes on a precious gold watch that was given to Hitler as a gift in 1929 and which was found on his body in the Fuehrerbunker in Berlin after he committed suicide in 1945.
Another major piece with a reserve price of £20,000 is a gold and emerald badge bearing the swastika which he received on his birthday, April 20, 1942.
Other items coming under the hammer include his sugar tongs from his study at his mountain retreat, the Berghof, valued at £1,100, a salt cellar with his initials on the top valued at £1,700 and a signed copy of his book Mein Kampf for which starting bids begin at £5,000.
The book is of enormous historical importance as it is dedicated to Rudolf Hess, his companion in Landsberg Fortress where he was imprisoned in the 1920’s for trying to overthrow the state.
'To my faithful fortress companion Rudolf Hess, dedicated by Adolf Hitler, Munich, 17 October 1925,' it reads.
Hess went on to become Hitler’s deputy before he flew to the UK in wartime in a bid to secure peace with Churchill and the Fuehrer thereupon pronounced him mad and disowned him.
The Hermann Historica Munich auction house, one of Germany’s most reputable, is behind the sale and says all the items in the saleroom have been authenticated and come from a wide variety of sources.
It says that all bidders will be vetted before sales are completed because it doesn’t want the objects falling into the hands of neo-Nazis.
Source : Daily Mail Website
Wizard! Unseen sketch of Harry Potter meeting a Hippogriff…
goes under the hammer (and it's set to sell for £10k)
An unseen sketch of Harry Potter meeting the mythical Hippogriff has been discovered 10 years after being drawn is set to sell for more than £10,000 at its saleroom.
The one-of-a-kind drawing by former Potter illustrator Cliff Wright, who designed the front covers for books two and three in the series, shows the wizard holding hands with the creature.
The Hippogriff, a cross between a horse, lion and eagle, first swooped into Harry's adventures in the third book of the series, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban.
Rare: The unseen sketch worth at least £10,000 features a note written to a friend in Canada, which says: 'To Louis Charles, all best wishes from Cliff'
The Sussex based artist refused to illustrate the fourth book after his original front and back cover artwork for Azkaban was lost by a design studio, meaning this drawing could be one of his last.
Experts estimate the 2002 sketch could sell for a five-figure sum.
Magic: A young Daniel Radcliffe, as Harry Potter
Mike Emeny, from Art Of The Imagination, said: 'There are an incredibly limited number of Harry Potter drawings and paintings because they have not been made into story books.
'Mainly it's just the artwork made to preview and promote the books, but that is all so closely controlled by rights it's almost impossible for collectors to get hold of them.
'This sketch is extremely rare - when Cliff finished his association with the Harry Potter series he stopped doing any drawings.
'Therefore, we would expect this to sell for around £10,000, but it could be a lot more.
'He did it for a friend of his from Canada but its ended up in our hands a decade later.
'Any Potter fan would love to get their hands on this item and there is a lot of excitement around it already. It would make a fantastic part of any collection.'
The sketch is being sold at the Antiques for Everyone Fair at the Birmingham NEC, which runs from October 27 to 30.
Antiques for Everyone is the UK's largest antair with more than 300 specialist dealers exhibiting more than 100,000 items.
Souce: Daily Mail
Leather jug made from the hide of Oliver Cromwell’s war horse emerges on Antique’s Roadshow
Charging into battle at the head of his cavalry, Oliver Cromwell was often in the thick of the fighting during the English Civil War.
And in many of those fearsome clashes he would have been astride his war horse Blackjack.
The trusty steed died in 1651 after the end of the civil war and – perhaps to honour the animal's memory – Cromwell had a number of leather jugs made from its hide.
Some 350 years later one of those jugs has come to light on TV's Antiques Roadshow and been valued at £30,000.
‘The great thing about this jug is Cromwell – one of the most controversial political and military figures in English history,' said Roadshow expert John Foster.
‘He defeated the Royalists during the Civil War, turning England to a republican state for a short time.'
Mr Foster said the jug was the most exciting find in years. It is inscribed with the words: Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Wales 1653.
Valuable: The jug which is inscribed with the words 'Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Wales 1653' is expected to fetch £30,000 at auction
Cromwell defeated King Charles I, who was beheaded for treason. He became the Lord Protector of England, but after the Restoration his body was dug up and hanged
A few years after 1653 the 2ft high jug was deposited at the family bank C Hoare and Co in London and left there.
It fell into the ownership of the Hoare family and was passed down the generations.
It is now owned by Richard Hoare whose son Paul took it to an Antiques Roadshow event. The jug is due to be featured on the show tomorrow.
Paul Hoare, from Bere Regis, Dorset, said: ‘I took it along earlier this year and the researchers and experts got very excited about it.
‘I was taken off to a private room and the jug was kept in a safe until I met John Foster.'
Mr Foster told Mr Hoare the jug was one of about a dozen made out of Blackjack for ceremonial purposes.
Mr Hoare's great-grandfather had the jug when he lived in Stourhead House in Wiltshire before the estate was left to the National Trust in 1947.
Cromwell and his cavalry force are credited with delivering victory to the Parliamentarians at a number of key clashes in the Civil War, including Marston Moor in 1644 and Naseby in 1645.
By the end of the war he was the leader of the Parliamentarians and was one of the signatories to the death warrant of Charles I who was executed for treason in 1649.
Cromwell was created Lord Protector in 1653 but died in 1658 and his republic ended two years later when Charles II returned from exile.
Source : Daily Mail