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| Passion Investments: Auctions |
Star Bids
Dana Micucci
10/01/2004
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“Spark the part...spark the person...spark the audience. Strike it! Light it!”
Katharine Hepburn once said, describing her acting style. Even after her death
in 2003, Hepburn retains the star power to ignite an audience, as the bidding
frenzy at Sotheby’s recent auction of property from her estate
demonstrated.
 | | KATHARINE HEPBURN’S sculpture of Spencer Tracy sold for $316,000 at auction. |
Bidding by telephone, over the Internet and in the crowded
sales-room, Hepburn enthusiasts around the world contested 695 lots of
furniture, fine art and decorations from her three homes. Bidders clamored not
only for clothing, career memorabilia, vintage glamour photos and artwork by
Hepburn herself, but even the most mundane items: address books, passports and
credit cards. The two-day sale grossed $5.8 million, outstripping its presale
estimate of $1 million. The sale’s top lot, a miniature bronze bust of Spencer
Tracy sculpted by Hepburn and featured on the set of Guess Who’s Coming to
Dinner?, fetched $316,000 after a lengthy bidding war. Its estimate was $3,000
to $5,000. A diamond and saphhire brooch given to the actress by Howard Hughes
sold for $120,000, more than quintuple its estimate. Even other celebrities
succumbed to auction fever. Novelist Danielle Steele picked up a group of
Hepburn’s black hats for $3,600; they had a presale estimate of $400 to $600.
Entertainer Wayne Newton took home the canoe from Hepburn’s film On Golden Pond
for $19,200.
“Objects that once belonged to or were affiliated with a
celebrity have a magical appeal, allowing a bit of stardust to rub off on us,”
professes Leila Dunbar, director of Sotheby’s collectibles department. “For many
fans, auctions offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire them.”
| People who buy in these sales understand the secret life of
objects and their stories. |
Passion. Obsession. Addiction. These traits often associated with collecting
find their purest—and sometimes most absurd—expression at celebrity auctions.
Most celebrity-owned or used objects have little intrinsic value; only their
star-quality sends prices soaring. Consider the $1.26 million dropped at
Christie’s in 1999 by New York City’s Gotta Have It!, an online auction company
and memorabilia dealer, for the svelte evening dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to
sing Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in
1962. (Monroe’s dress still holds the auction record for a celebrity garment.)
“The demand for celebrity memorabilia is growing,” remarks Robert Schagrin,
president of Gotta Have It! “Prices have risen five- to tenfold over the past
decade, and will continue to escalate. This market is still in its infancy.”
Increased media exposure and the growing use of the Internet as a bidding
vehicle will expand the market for these items, he says.
 | | ONE OF the pairs of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz fetched
$666,000 at Christie’s. |
Prescient Purchases
Actress Debbie Reynolds claims to have amassed the
world’s largest collection of film memorabilia. Industry experts estimate that
her thousands of objects (mainly costumes, props and movie posters) are worth as
much as $50 million. Her son, Todd Fisher, recalls that when his mother started
investing in memorabilia in the early 1970s, people thought she was crazy for
buying a bunch of old costumes. Now, that perception has changed. Many items in
her assemblage, particularly those belonging to luminaries such as Hepburn and
Errol Flynn, have appreciated an average of 20 percent each year, according to
Fisher.
Reynolds’ auction trophies include Monroe’s famous subway-grate dress
from The Seven-Year Itch, which she purchased for $1,000 in 1972. Fisher
estimates it is now worth more than $2 million, based on appraisals by
auctioneers and memorabilia experts. Reynolds also prizes a pair of ruby
slippers—one of an estimated five pairs used in The Wizard of Oz—that she bought
from MGM for $15,000 in 1971. (Another pair of ruby slippers sold for $666,000
at Christie’s in 2000.) Of course, her collection also includes her own
mementos, including four dresses she wore in Singin’ in the Rain. Reynolds will
soon display a substantial number of her items at her new Hollywood Motion
Picture Museum, scheduled to open in April 2005 in the Smokey Mountain town of
Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Memorabilia collectors credit that landmark MGM sale in
1971 as being the genesis of the celebrity auction market. However, Sotheby’s
sale of the Andy Warhol collection in the 1980s marked the first time that
collectors began to view celebrity memorabilia as investments. The Warhol sale
attracted the media to cover celebrity auction prices and sharpened public
awareness of the investment potential of these items.
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