The highlights of the 2021 science, sci-fi and technology auction year

This is the second part of a two-part overview of the 2021 auction year – a year where investors channeled more of their wealth into “investments of passion” than ever before.

Part One covered the highlights across all auction genres, with over 20 science and technology artifacts included – all those over US$1,000,000. This is part two of our coverage of the 2021 auction year and covers the 150 science, sci-fi and technology artifacts that sold for more than $100,000.

Etymologiae by Isidorus Hispalensis (c.560-636)

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $100,000
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 23 April 2021
Estimate: $ 20,000 to $ 40,000
Official Auction Page
A rare third edition of the first Christian encyclopedia compiled by Isidorus Hispalensis (c.560-636). Isidorus was the first Christian writer to attempt to compile a summa of universal knowledge, which is quite some challenge when you are also the “Archbishop of Seville” (a role he held for 32 years) and widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world.”
Isidorus truly left his mark on the world, having been the author of the first printed book to contain a map and the inventor of the period (full stop), comma, and colon.
More complete copies of Isidore’s “Etymologiae” fetch significantly greater amounts at auction, with the record price of $315,750 having been set in 2013 by Christie’s for a complete first edition containing the first printed map.
Isidorus is also known as “Isidore of Seville” and you may already know him as “the Patron Saint of the internet.”

"R2-SHP Droid" from "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" (2019)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $ 100,000
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 1 July 2021
Estimate: $ 80,000 to $ 120,000
Official Auction Page
R2-SHP (“Shep”) can be clearly seen in several scenes of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019), first as an astromech droid at the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss and in the background as Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix (Billie Lourd) helps the ailing General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) to her bed. Shep’s R2 body was also paired with an R6-style dome for additional filming; the astromech is easily recognizable due to its unique blue color scheme.

One page letter signed by "A. Einstein" (1944), discussing his Theory of Relativity manuscript, Hitler and the Nazis

University Archives

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $ 100,000
Auction House: University Archives | Date sold: 6 January 2021
Estimate: $ 75,000 to $ 80,000
Official Auction Page
This one page letter to his friend, David Rothman, is clearly signed by the great scientist and in answer to a question presumably posed in previous correspondence regarding his manuscript on the Theory of Relativity: "My first manuscript about relativity was not burned by the Nazis. I myself threw it into the waste-basket after it was printed judging it was good for nothing. At that time I knew nothing of the snobbery of this human world."
Despite such characteristic authenticity, this letter has twice sold for modest totals at Sotheby's for $104,500 in 2011 and here for $100,000. One fascinating sideline to this lot was this article entitled “Einstein’s Long Island Summer of ’39.”

Full-size "T-800 Endoskeleton" from "Terminator 2 - Judgement Day" (1991)

Propstore(T-800) / Heritage Auctions (poster)

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £ 75,000 ($100,238)
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 11 November 2021
Estimate: £ 60,000 to £ 80,000 ($ 80,190 to $ 106,920)
Official Auction Page
The T-800 Terminator Endoskeleton was never made in large numbers for the film series and as the auction description puts it, it "is the signature piece from one of the most beloved science fiction franchises in cinema."
Accordingly, as they rarely reach auction, this T-800 Endoskeleton was a bargain as Propstore sold a similar Endoskeleton in 2018 for more than three times this price, and Heritage Auctions sold one in 2012 for $180,000.

"Starbug 1" filming miniature from "Red Dwarf" (T.V. Series, 1988 - present)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £ 75,000 ( $ 100,238 )
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 11 November 2021
Estimate: £ 60,000 to £ 80,000 ($ 80,190 to $ 106,920)
Official Auction Page
A model miniature of “Starbug 1” from the sci-fi comedy television show “Red Dwarf.” The notoriously unreliable Starbug first appeared in Series III and was the crew's primary mode of transportation to different planets, although the Starbugs were often crashed by the crew.

Oversized 18 x 24in signed orotone print of "The Vanishing Race" (1904) by Edward S. Curtis

Bonhams

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $ 100,312
Auction House: Bonhams | Date sold: 30 June 2021
Estimate: $ 20,000 to $ 30,000
Official Auction Page
Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868 – 1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. His masterwork, “The North American Indian” appears most years in our auction highlights, though only 280 copies of the 20 volume work were published in the day. During the compilation of his magnum opus, he studied more than eighty tribes, taking more than 40,000 photographs. This photograph is one of his most famous. Two copies of “The North American Indian” were sold at auction in 2021 – both are referenced in this article (see the last lot on the list) and in Part One of this article.

Full Tooth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $ 100,800
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 3 December 2021
Estimate: $ 90,000 to $ 100,000
Official Auction Page
At a little over seven inches long, this full tooth of the greatest terrestrial carnivore of all time gives one’s imagination excellent guidelines as to the personality of its prior owner. Such a tooth would be perfectly proportioned to a head approximately five feet long, and the 40-foot 16,000-lb (7,260-kg) body of THE most fearsome apex predator the planet has ever known.

Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Sunday Comic Strip Original Art (King Features Syndicate, 1936).

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $ 102,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 15 January 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
Alex Raymond (1909-1956) was an American comic strip artist best known for creating the science fiction “Flash Gordon” comic strip for King Features Syndicate, though he also created “Secret Agent X-9”, “Jungle Jim”, and “Rip Kirby.” The “Flash Gordon” comic strip was created in competition with the first “Space Opera” adventure comic strip, “Buck Rogers”, and was also translated into a wide variety of media, including motion pictures, television, and animated series.

Original comic strip art from these first mass-market sci-fi comic strips (which appeared internationally in newspapers between the World Wars) is now highly sought after and regularly sells for six figures.

The original art for the very first Flash Gordon comic strip holds the record price at $512,000, sold by Profiles in History, which has since become part of Heritage Auctions.

"Zelda II: The Adventure of Link" (1988) NES Nintendo Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $ 102,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 29 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
The video game marketplace has emerged from seemingly nowhere in the last 18 months, officially gaining mainstream recognition when eight of the ten most valuable video games in history sold during a three-day sale at Heritage Auctions in July 2021.

So many video games sold for more than $100,000 in the last year that we have only listed the better-known games in this year’s highlights. This is one of them.

Vasquez's (Jeanette Goldstein) "Lightweight M-41A Pulse Rifle" from "Aliens" (1986)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $106,250
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 1 July 2021
Estimate: $ 30,000 to $ 50,000
Official Auction Page
2021 was a big year for sci-fi movie weapons, as you will see as this highlights listing unfolds. This fictitious weapon was used on screen by Vasquez (Jeanette Goldstein) in James Cameron's sci-fi action sequel “Aliens” (1986) and was screen matched when sold by Propstore during the 1990s. As the hero pulse rifles used in the movie were all broken down, re-assembled and repainted after filming, this unmodified original is one of the finest original examples in existence.

Autograph Einstein scientific manuscript (early draft on unified field theory - 1925)

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £ 81,250 ( $ 107,461 )
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 December 2021
Estimate: £ 40,000 to £ 60,000 ($ 52,904 to $ 79,356)
Official Auction Page
From the auction description: Einstein had begun his quest for a unified field theory at the beginning of the 1920s, with the aim of finding a theory that could account both for gravity and electromagnetism: as he put it in his 1923 Nobel Prize lecture, 'The intellect seeking after an integrated theory cannot rest content with the assumption that there exist two distinct fields totally independent of each other by their nature'.

Dated on Christmas Day 96-years-ago, this autograph two page manuscript is an early draft on unified field theory, using a modification of general relativity. It is apparently the earliest manuscript relating to unified field theory to have appeared at international auction in the past 50 years.

"2 ½-Inch Pocket Globe and Armillary Sphere in case" (circa 1715) by Johann Baptist Homann

Bonhams

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £77,750 ($107,466)
Auction House: Bonhams | Date sold: 15 September 2021
Estimate: £12,000 to £18,000 ($16,586 to $24,880)
Official Auction Page
This rare Johann Homann (1664-1724) pocket globe was one of the prizes when The Stephen Edell Collection of Pocket and Table Globes went to auction by Bonhams in London in September, this year (2021).

Homann moved to Nuremburg in the late 1680s to pursue a career in maps and gained access to the terrestrial and celestial gores published by the renowned astronomer Georg Christoph Eimmart (1638-1705). The map was state-of-the-art for the time, with California shown as an Island, no coast shown to West-North Canada, the Australian East Coast not delineated, and New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land only partially shown.

"A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans" (1833-1835) by John Gould

Arader Galleries

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $108,000
Auction House: Arader Galleries | Date sold: 23 January 2021
Estimate: $75,000 to $125,000
Official Auction Page
English ornithologist John Gould always has multiple entries in our auction year highlights, this year with three different Gould books selling for more than $100,000, and another two selling for more than $50,000.

This first edition of Gould's first monograph at Arader Galleries marks one of the highest prices paid for Gould’s “Monograph of the Ramphastidae” for more than a decade - largely because the finest copies have long since been locked away. Indeed, the two highest prices ever paid for Gould’s treatment of the most colorful bird species occurred in 1980 ($400,000 at Christie’s) and 2004 (GBP £71,700 - $132,874 at Christie’s).

"Monumenti dell Egitto e Della Nubia" (Elephant folio - 1832 to 1834) by Ippolito Rosellini

Fonsie Mealey

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €92,500 ($108,410)
Auction House: Fonsie Mealey | Date sold: 22 September 2021
Estimate: €50,000 to €80,000 ($58,600 to $93,760)
Official Auction Page
Ippolito Rosellini (1800-1843), is considered the father of Italian Egyptology, who studied under Jean-François Champollion, then accompanying him on the Franco-Tuscan expedition to Egypt over 1828 and 1829. This work is the result of that expedition and when Champollion died suddenly in 1832, the whole responsibility of publishing the report of the expedition fell to Rosellini.

The complete set of books was eventually published over a 12 year period during which Rosellini contracted malaria and died, with the final volume published posthumously in 1844.

Complete sets of the work are now exceedingly rare, and when Sotheby’s sold an incomplete set in 2015 it stated that it had “traced only one copy at auction in the last 35 years” that was complete. That copy set the auction record for the work when it sold at Sotheby’s on 10 May 2011, for £140,000 (£169,250 with BP).

Hence this copy selling via Fonsie Mealy’s is quite remarkable as in addition to a complete copy First Edition Elephant folio (1832 to 1834) with Double Set of Plates, it comes with a second set in original condition, with the same compliment of plates but in original wrappers, unopened and in very clean condition. In addition there is a complete set of the original Text Volumes, consisting of 9 volumes (1832 - 1844), uncut, with the original printed wrappers. All of the above went to auction in a fine mahogany custom made case, with lift up reading slope and sliding shelves. Incredible value at this price.

"Logica vetus" (parchment manuscript , around 1250) by Aristotle

Ketterer Kunst Doerling

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €90,000 ($109,881)
Auction House: Ketterer Kunst Doerling | Date sold: 31 May 2021
Estimate: €60,000 plus ($70,000 plus)
Official Auction Page
Though written more than 2350 years ago, Aristotle’s "Logica vetus" has been one of the foremost influences in the development of philosophy and logic. This lot is a rare medieval manuscript, on vellum, of Aristotle’s milestone text compilation of logic. It is believed to have been used as an early textbook for an institute of higher education from the 13th century, most likely at the University of Paris. It is especially interesting as an example of a university textbook used by a succession of students or teachers: it contains contemporary and near-contemporary marginal annotations in a variety of hands and styles, which both correct and comment on the base texts.

Pokémon Blue Version (1998) GameBoy Nintendo Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $114,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 29 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
“Pokemon Red” and “Pokemon Blue” were the equal first installments in the Pokemon video game series (380 million sales and counting), and this copy of Pokemon Blue has the highest known Wata rating of 9.8 A++. From the auction description: It is an absolutely dazzling display piece, with rich colors, sharp corners, and a glossy, pristine seal.

"A Monograph of the Phasianidae, or Family of the Pheasants" (1870-1872) by Daniel Giraud Elliot

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £81,900 ($115,004)
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 May 2021
Estimate: £40,000 to £60,000 ($56,168 to $84,252)
Official Auction Page
Daniel Giraud Elliot’s “A Monograph of the Phasianidae, or Family of the Pheasants” is considered by many to be the equal of any of John Gould’s works, and Joseph Wolf’s illustrations equal to both Audubon and Edward Lear. Despite only 119 copies produced for subscribers between 1870-1872, first editions have never sold for much over $100,000. Indeed, many of the highest prices paid for this masterpiece were at auctions at least two decades ago.

"Le Theatre du Monde" (1643-1645) by Willem and Joan Blaeu

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £81,900 ($115,004)
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 May 2021
Estimate: £50,000 to £70,000 ($70,210 to $98,294)
Official Auction Page
A French-text four-volume copy in a presentation binding of “Le Theatre du Monde”, produced by the father-son team of master mapmakers, Willem Blaeu and his son Joan Blaeu. Willem studied under Tycho Brahe and at a later date, both sons joined the business to create a dynasty of master craftsmen. Work from the Blaeus features every year in our auction highlights for their maps, atlases and globes. The best known work from the Blaeu family is the monumental “Atlas Maior”, the final version of Joan Blaeu's atlas.

"Tony Stark" (Robert Downey Jr) "Mark 42 Iron Man" helmet from "Iron Man 3" (Marvel, 2013)

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $115,625
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 16 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
This iconic "Mark 42 Iron Man" helmet from Iron Man 3 (Marvel, 2013) is instantly recognizable as the helmet is visible throughout the film as a principal component of the high tech armor used by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). This is the “hero light-up" version used for close-up shots in the film and is constructed of cast fiberglass panels expertly assembled and painted in maroon and pewter. The outer shell of the helmet has been mildly studio distressed to appear used and lightly antiqued to enhance some surface detail.
Perhaps more importantly, it is likely to appreciate in value far faster than Stormtrooper helmets from the Star Wars franchise, which are far more plentiful.

Signed Albert Einstein letter (1919) explaining difference between the special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity

International Autograph Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €104,125 ($117,880)
Auction House: International Autograph Auctions | Date sold: 2 December 2021
Estimate: €30,000 to €50,000 ($33,963 to $56,605)
Official Auction Page
A single page typed letter in German signed “A. Einstein” and dated 17 August 1919. From the auction description: Einstein states that he found his correspondent's request after returning from a trip and remarks 'It is really a misunderstanding, but a very understandable and obvious one', continuing to explain, 'A distinction has to be made between the special theory of relativity established in 1905 and the general theory of relativity that emerged from the same. According to the former, speeds over 300,000 km/sec are excluded; the use of rotating coordinate systems is not permitted. According to this theory, the rotation still has an absolute character. The general theory of relativity, however, allows arbitrarily rotating coordinate systems, but knows no upper limit of the speed relative to the coordinate system' and concluding by suggesting that Reiter can find out more in Einstein's published booklet About the Special and General Theory of Relativity. 

Isaac Newton Autograph Manuscript Relating to the Principia (C. 1715-25)

University Archives

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $118,750
Auction House: University Archives | Date sold: 26 May 2021
Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000
Official Auction Page
Newton’s esteemed position in the scientific Pantheon could not be highlighted more so than the price paid for this slip of paper measuring 1.625 x 7.25 in with parts of an autograph manuscript relating to the Principia. The tiny slip of paper was formerly in the famous Honeyman Collection of Scientific Books and Manuscripts (and is thought to relate to Book III of Newton’s Principia).

Krechet-94 ("Gyrfalcon") lunar spacesuit, manufactured by NPP Zvezda (1962)

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $119,700
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 20 July 2021
Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000
Official Auction Page
Space suits designed for Extra Vehicular Activity are extremely rare, with Russian suits even rarer than American suits, because the very few American suits released from the program have traditionally gone to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Just the same, they represent exceptional value, because they are so costly to produce. HowStuffWorks estimated the cost for a flight-rated NASA space suit at US$12,000,000.

This lot is a Krechet-94 ("Gyrfalcon) Lunar EVA Spacesuit, specifically designed to be used on Moonwalks as part of the N-1/L-3 Soviet lunar program which was discontinued following the death of Sergei Korolev, the chief architect of the Russian space program. This Krechet-94 suit was likely made for training, as the LSS controls appear to be a mock-up and are not functional.

In general, make-believe space suits from movies sell for larger amounts than real space suits. Last year the space suit used by Dr. Dave Bowman in “2001: A Space Odyssey” (MGM, 1968) fetched $370,000, and in 2018 the space suit worn by Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in the 1979 science fiction movie Alien, fetched $204,800 at Profiles in History (now Heritage).

By comparison, in 2018, a Gemini G-2C-4 Full High Altitude Pressure Suit fetched $162,500 at Sotheby’s. The space suit was complete and authentic in every respect.

"Geographical, Historical, Political, Philosophical and Mechanical Essays" (1755) by Lewis Evans

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $119,700
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $150,000 to $200,000
Official Auction Page
Despite the rather ponderous title of “Geographical, Historical, Political, Philosophical and Mechanical Essays. The First, Containing an Analysis of a General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America; And of the Country of the Confederate Indians: A Description of the Face of the Country; the Boundaries of the Confederates; and the Maritime and Inland Navigations of the several Rivers and Lakes contained therein.” this book by Lewis Evans is of the utmost consequence. It was printed in Philadelphia in 1755 by Benjamin Franklin and D. Hall with the assistance of a £50 grant from the Philadelphia Assembly and the auctioned copy here is the first British issue, published in 1755 in London.

"A Collection of Portraits of the Most Celebrated Chiefs of the North American Indians" (1836–1838) by James Otto Lewis

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $119,700
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $120,000 to $180,000
Official Auction Page
An extremely rare complete copy containing all 80 plates of the legendary James Otto Lewis Aboriginal Portfolio. In addition to the present example, only two other complete sets, with all plates, title and advertisements, have sold in the last forty years.

Apollo 11 Vintage NASA "Red Number" Color Photo

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $125,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 24 September 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
As far as we can tell, this legendary image known simply as "Visor" is now the most expensive NASA pic ever sold after it landed a winning bid of $125,000.

The pic comes from the J.L. Pickering Collection Auction at Heritage and was among 300 photographs picked from his personal collection of some 100,000 space images. Pickering is the co-author of a handful of books on various space missions and space history, and his latest book, Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years, is now in bookstores. His website, RetroSpaceImages.com is full of photographs and videos, and definitely worth a look.

Albert Einstein's Pipes and Menorah Pipe Holder

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $125,000
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 25 September 2021
Estimate: $50,000 plus 
Official Auction Page
In 2017, one of Albert Einstein’s pipes sold for GBP £52,500 ($67,665) at a Christie’s auction, with the auction description noting that of the two other pipes known, “one is at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, where it is the single most requested item in the Modern Physics collection, and another at the Historical Society of Princeton.”

Hence this cache of nine Einstein pipes for $125,000 would seem like an absolute bargain for an investor. There was only one Albert Einstein, supply is capped, and unlike many other forms of collectibles investment, Einstein’s universally appealing brand values are set in stone and will not diminish with time. There are already dozens of instances where he has smashed expectations at auction.

Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 Flown Flight Plan Page (1969)

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $129,694
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 21 October 2021
Estimate: $40,000 plus 
Official Auction Page
This flight plan was accompanied by a detailed letter of provenance from Buzz Aldrin, which reads in part: "Enclosed with this letter is a sheet numbered 3-71 and 3-72 from the Apollo 11 Flight Plan, Part No. SKB32100080-350, S/N 1001. It is part of the entire document that was carried to the Moon in Command Module Columbia on the first lunar landing mission during July 16 to 24, 1969. This sheet is from the detailed timeline section and covers hour 104 through the beginning of hour 106 in the mission.

"Page 3-71 lists the steps for the Stay/No Stay for Lunar Surface Operations. Neil Armstrong had just made history’s first manned lunar landing less than 2 hours before these steps. Since that time, we were in a posture to leave the lunar surface if an emergency occurred. By this point in the flight plan, we and Mission Control had verified all our systems were operating properly. We were then given a go to stay on the lunar surface during our 104th hour in the mission.

"Needless to say, Neil and I had an abundance of energy after this historic landing and starting a rest period as listed on page 3-72 was the last thing on our minds. At about 104 hours and 30 minutes into the mission, Neil asked and received concurrence from Mission Control to start the EVA or moon walk activities about 5 hours earlier than written in the flight plan. Thus, we were actually doing EVA Prep work during this period on page 3-72. These tasks consisted of configuring our space suits to be able to strap on our PLSS (Portable Life Support Systems) or 'back packs,' then performing space suit pressure and communication checks.

"The flight plan was probably the single most important document related to the success of our mission. It provided a time schedule of crew activities and spacecraft maneuvers to accomplish the first lunar landing. This page in particular from a Ground Elapsed Time (GET) standpoint has some of the most significant events that occurred during the entire Apollo 11 flight."

Alan Turing Autograph four-page analysis of the Monte-Carlo betting system (1933)

Bonhams

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £94,000 ($129,927)
Auction House: Bonhams | Date sold: 15 September 2021
Estimate: £30,000 to £50,000 ($41,466 to $69,110)
Official Auction Page
Alfred William Beuttell (1880-1965) was the father of Alan Turing's schoolfriend Victor Beuttell, and stories of the older Beuttell’s successful gambling system piqued Turing's interest whilst staying with the family over Christmas 1932. He showed Alan his gambling system, which Alan took back to Cambridge and studied. On 2 February 1933 he wrote back with the result of his analysis, which was that the system yielded an expected gain of exactly zero, and that accordingly Mr Beuttell's winning had been entirely due to luck and not to skill.

Couched in the language of mathematics and equations, by working out the probability of winning at increasing increments of 150, 1,520, 4,560 and 30,400 spins he proved mathematically that the longer you play, the probability of losing money increases.

"Birds of Great Britain" (1862 -1873) by John Gould

Arader Galleries

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $132,000
Auction House: Arader Galleries | Date sold: 23 January 2021
Estimate: $70,000 to $85,000
Official Auction Page
A first edition of Gould’s most popular work bound in five volumes in excellent condition and formerly owned by the California Academy of Sciences.

"Metroid" (1987) NES Nintendo Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $132,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 29 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
Metroid is one of the most celebrated franchises to get its start on the NES console, and it also marks the first appearance of Samus Aran. While Samus may not be the first female video game character in video games, she does hold the title of the first, playable Nintendo female protagonist. The influence of this series is so profound that it inspired the creation of a genre that can only be described as "Metroidvania," a portmanteau of "Metroid" and "Castlevania."
It stood to reason that this particular game would set an auction record, as it is the only sealed copy of Metroid known that still has the cardboard hangtab. To many Nintendo history-obsessed collectors, copies of games with this particular packaging feature are the height of collectability and so it came to pass that it took the record, which it will reclaim again at some point in the distant future. They don’t make ‘em like this any more.

"128K Macintosh Motherboard Display" signed by Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin (1989)

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $132,049
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 19 August 2021
Estimate: $40,000 plus 
Official Auction Page
A rare custom-built display featuring an original Macintosh 128k logic board mounted on white acrylic and framed, signed on the non-glare front pane in white paint pen by the Apple co-founder, "Steve Jobs," and by the father of the Macintosh, "Jef Raskin." A fabulous artifact of the very first Macintosh and something that cannot help but gain in gravitas and value as the decades pass … and a great yarn worth reading in the auction description.

"Da Qing wannian yitong dili quantu" (19th century) by Huang Qianren

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £94,500 ($132,697)
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 May 2021
Estimate: £60,000 to £80,000 ($84,252 to $112,336)
Official Auction Page
From time to time, we see an example of the famous “Blue Map” of Qianren Huang reach auction. As the auction description for this lot states, “a striking example of this impressive and rare map produced during the Qing dynasty.”

We saw such a map sell in 2016 and reported on its sale for $333,648 (£269,000) at Sotheby’s which put it in 17th place in our annual listing that year.

This year another very similar map (this lot) sold for $132,697 (£94,500) at Sotheby’s and another similar map sold for $50,000 at Christie’s on 16 October, and in May 2019 another similar map sold for $137,271 (£106,250) and again featured in our end-of-year auction round-up.

Quite clearly there are extremely rare blue maps and there are blue maps that are less so, and some are worth a King’s ransom, and some aren’t. So do your homework well … caveat emptor!

"Dialogo" (1632) by Galileo Galilei

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $137,500
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 October 2021
Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000
Official Auction Page
Given that Dialogo ... sopre i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano is Galilei's famous defense of Copernican heliocentrism and the direct cause of his trial and imprisonment, it is surprising that this book has not achieved much higher prices at auction.

Galileo's formal use of the dialogue allowed him to explore his Copernican theories fully within the rubric of the "equal and impartial discussion" required by Pope Urban VIII. The work "was designed both as an appeal to the great public and as an escape from silence... it is a masterly polemic for the new science. It displays all the great discoveries in the heavens which the ancients had ignored; it inveighs against the sterility, willfulness, and ignorance of those who defend their systems; it revels in the simplicity of Copernican thought and, above all, it teaches that the movement of the Earth makes sense in philosophy, that is, in physics... The Dialogo, more than any other work, made the heliocentric system a commonplace" (PMM).

Pope Urban VIII was not so swayed, and immediately convened a special commission to examine the book and make recommendations. In casting the Pope as the simple-minded Aristotelian Simplicius, Galileo brought upon himself arrest, trial by the Inquisition and life imprisonment. The sentence was commuted to permanent house arrest, while the printing of any of his works was forbidden.

Christie’s holds the record price for a copy of Dialogo at $173,000 set in 2014 and this copy is now the second-most expensive ever sold at auction.

"Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale" (1632) by Samuel de Champlain

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $138,600
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $90,000 to $120,000
Official Auction Page
Samuel de Champlain was one of the pioneers of the North American continent, making somewhere between 20 and 29 voyages to the New World from his native France, creating the first accurate coastal map of Canada, founding New France (Canada) and Quebec City on July 3, 1608. One or both of his two major books (the other being “Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois”) are almost always in the top scientific documents sold at auction each year and this year both have sold for more than $100,000 and are in this listing.

Interestingly, a copy of this work that sold for $133,163 (€124,460) at Binoche et Giquello in 2016 was just inside the top 50 most valuable scientific documents of that year.

This year with a very similar price, this book sits in 127th place for the year, indicating the general rising of prices in the category.

"Les Grands Voyages" (1590-1624) by Theodor, Johann Theodor and Johann Israel de Bry

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $138,600
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $175,000 to $250,000
Official Auction Page
"Les Grands Voyages" (1590-1624) was probably the most famous of any collections of voyages in Europe and it offers considerable insight into the way America looked in the sixteenth century and was particularly influential in framing the way Europeans saw her.

The inspiration for this work came when Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) visited England in 1587, where he met Richard Hakluyt and became interested in Hakluyt's collection of voyages, eventually published as "The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation" (a copy sold this year for $594,814 and is in this listing ), but at that stage Hakluyt's work was still in preparation.

Hakluyt persuaded De Bry to publish a collection of voyages similar to his own to cover the Americas, assisting him with sources of New World exploration and giving him with a copy of Thomas Hariot's 1588 book, "A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia" (full PDF here).

The most prized copies of "Les Grands Voyages" (1590-1624) have been locked away in long term collections for many years, with this copy becoming available at Sotheby’s sale of the Barbara and Ira Lipman Collection in New York in April. So special was the collection that many of the books from that collection are within this listing, and there are an equal number that are not, as they were not necessarily related to science or technology. The sale saw no less than 29 individual documents fetch more than $100,000 apiece.

Hence, the price of this lot was remarkable given that it was estimated to sell for between $175,000 and $250,000 and prior copies of this quality had sold for even more: £204,000 ($395,046) at Sotheby’s  Macclesfield Library sale in London in March 2007, €228,750 ($293,097) at a Sotheby’s Paris sale in November 2012, and £175,250 ($276,545) at Christie’s sale of the Arcana Collection in London in October 2010.

"A Map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish Settlements Adjacent thereto" (1733) by Henry Popple

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $138,600
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $60,000 to $80,000
Official Auction Page
One of the most important battles between the English and French in laying claim to new lands in North America was carried out by their mapmakers. This map is extremely important because it is first large-scale map of British possessions in America, and one of the two most important large-scale maps of colonial America, in superb condition with brilliant coloring.

"A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America" (1755) by John Mitchell

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $138,600
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 16 July 2021
Estimate: $80,000 to $120,000
Official Auction Page
Sotheby’s auction description states John Mitchell’s 1755 map is “regarded by many authorities as the most important map in the history of American cartography.”
Twenty-one editions of the massive (1980 x 1420 mm) map appeared between 1755 and 1781 and it became the basis for territorial boundaries drawn in the treaties concluding the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.
As the map is not viewable in its entirety on the Sotheby’s auction page, readers will be able to examine the magnificence of this map via the special viewer on the Library of Congress web site.

Original cover art for "Star Wars: Heir to the Empire" #1 of 6 (Dark Horse Comics, 1995) by Mathieu Lauffray

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $143,750
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 3 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
This image comes direct from the private collection of the artist, Mathieu Lauffray. According to Lauffray, "we are in 1995, Olivier Vatine and Fred Blanchard offered me the unthinkable. Make the covers of their Star Wars comic book, for the Dark Horse Comics editions. Star Wars was hands down the most important work of fiction to me. I discovered the trilogy indoors, in 1977, 1980, and 1983. The world was never the same afterwards. During this miraculous collaboration, I received feedback, remarks, and validations from Lucasfilm and Dark Horse as sacred relics. During this collaboration, everything was good in trying to convey to the public my passion for this universe which had given me so much. I painted, I did all I could, and never have I been more enthusiastic in my life as a fan."

Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 Flown LM Lunar Surface Checklist Page (1969)

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $143,750
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 21 October 2021
Estimate: $60,000 plus 
Official Auction Page
If the inscriptions on both sides of this one page document don’t give you goose bumps, check for a pulse. This document accompanied Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to the surface of the moon.

"Novum ac magnum theatrum urbium Belgicae" & "Belgicae liberae ac foederatae" (1649) by Joan Blaeu

Marc van de Wiele Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €106,250 ($143,894)
Auction House: Marc van de Wiele Auctions | Date sold: 2 October 2021
Estimate: €50,000 to €80,000 ($67,715 to $108,344)
Official Auction Page
The townbooks were a proud celebration of the newly independent Netherlands, forming one of the most lavishly illustrated works produced in Amsterdam during the 17 century, and of great value in providing an accurate topographical record of the towns and cities of Belgium and the Netherlands. "Of all the Blaeu atlases, the townbooks of the Netherlands are held in the highest esteem... Bound up, by sentiment, with the most dramatic and heroic period of the shaping of the Dutch State it shows the proud and industrious cities... in their full splendor" (Koeman IV, I p. 337-342).

"De Wit's Composite Atlas" (1715) by Frederick De Wit

Arader Galleries

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,000
Auction House: Arader Galleries | Date sold: 11 December 2021
Estimate: $125,000 to $150,000
Official Auction Page
Frederick De Wit was one of the most highly-regarded engravers of maps of the second half of the 17th-century, known for his accurate, detailed and distinctive work. This magnificent full-color atlas was produced around 1715, nearly 60 years after the master craftsman published his first map.

"Mega Man" (1987) NES Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 2 April 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
The price of this game gives an indication as to just how quickly the games market moved in 2021. In December 2019, an ultra-rare copy of Mega Man from the game’s first production run sparked a flurry of competitive bidding between more than 20 bidders to reach $75,000, the world record for the most valuable sealed video game ever sold at auction.

Mega Man is one of the most iconic video games, and this game marked his first appearance, so it was natural that as with comics and rookie sports cards, the first production of the first game would be the most valuable. The above lot sold 17 months later as a game in similar condition from the second production run, and it sold for nearly double the price of the earlier copy, going close to the world record at the time, which had risen to $156,000. Fifteen minutes after this game sold, the world record jumped to $660,000, 13 weeks after that it jumped to $870,000 and a few days later, to $1,560,000.

"Final Fantasy VII" (1997) PS1 Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 11 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
The Final Fantasy video game series is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time with 15 versions and 165 million software units sold and Final Fantasy XVI on the way. Final Fantasy VII was a landmark game and and this is the very best copy known.

"Tomb Raider" (1996) PS1 Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 11 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
Lara Croft is one of the most iconic video game characters of all-time, and she had her first appearance in this game, so it’s no surprise that Tomb Raider was one of the first PS1 games to command six figures at auction, with this Wata 9.4 A+ copy fetching $144,000 in July.
Tomb Raider itself is a highly influential game, emphasizing exploration and puzzle-solving even more than action.

"Super Smash Bros." (1999) N64 Nintendo game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 11 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
In fetching this price, this copy became just the fourth sealed copy of this 1999 N64 Nintendo game to go to auction, and the highest grade ever seen at auction, in Wata 9.4 A++.
This is also the first game in the best-selling fighting game franchise of all time - the sales for the most recent instalment on the Nintendo Switch alone are more than twice the number of any other fighting game! In terms of cumulative sales, there's just no competition; no other fighting game franchise can go toe-to-toe with the popularity of Super Smash Bros.

Autograph letter signed by Charles Darwin (1860) describing the success of his "Origin of Species" book

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,020
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 8 December 2021
Estimate: $10,000 plus 
Official Auction Page
Though Charles Darwin discusses his world-changing “Origin of the Species” book in this two-page letter, it is the back story that makes it such an enchanting item. The letter is written to Darwin’s teacher, mentor and fellow naturalist, John Stevens Henslow. Henslow is the person who kindled Darwin’s interest in natural history and it was Henslow who was originally offered the role of naturalist to sail aboard HMS Beagle during its two-year voyage to South America. Henslow convinced Captain Fitzroy to accept Charles Darwin for the role instead, and the rest is history.

"Collection of travels by Mr Thevenot" (1681) by Melchisédech Thévenot

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $144,900
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $80,000 to $120,000
Official Auction Page
This is a first edition of Thevenot’s collection of travel stories and maps, and one which contained the first published accounts of several historically-important explorations. Most notably, the book contains the first publication of the Joliet/Marquette discovery of the Upper Mississippi and its exploration to the Arkansas River in 1673. The accompanying map is the first printed map of the Mississippi River, and includes the first appearance of Lake Michigan, designated "Lao de Michigami," the first appearance of that place name in print.

Another section of the book involves the publication of a map showing "Terre Australe” and “Hollandia Nova”, which was a straight lift from the maps resultant from Abel Tasman's 1644 voyage.

Melchisédech Thévenot was an industrious soul, helping to found the the Académie Royale des Sciences (the French Academy of Sciences), inventing the spirit level, writing a successful book on swimming in 1696 which is credited with popularizing the pastime and in particular, the breaststroke. Thévenot was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1990

Autograph manuscript draft of a scientific paper on Unified Field Theory (early 1940s) by Albert Einstein

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £106,250 ($147,114)
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 14 July 2021
Estimate: £15,000 to £20,000 ($20,769 to $27,692)
Official Auction Page
A single page in Albert Einstein’s handwriting, of an unknown, apparently unpublished and unstudied manuscript. Numbered #10, the page is dense with mathematical equations.

"Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle" (1839) by Charles Darwin and Robert Fitzroy

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £106,250 ($147,114)
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 14 July 2021
Estimate: £25,000 to £35,000 ($34,615 to $48,461)
Official Auction Page
This is Charles Darwin’s first published book, and the sub-title of the book largely describes its contents: “Between the Years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the Southern Shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the Globe.”

One of the great advantages of Darwin’s books are that they are written in English, so if you have a mind to check out the contents, Darwin Online has the full text of this book as well as his better-known “On the Origin of the Species”, plus a wide range of other fascinating documentation from his life's work.

One Sheet (27" X 41") poster for "The Wolf Man" (Universal 1941)

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $150,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 4 November 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
The most expensive science fiction movie poster sold during 2021 is the poster at left in the image. The image at right is a lobby card for the movie.

Original art for the book dust jacket for "The Chessmen of Mars" (1922) by James Allen St. John

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $150,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 4 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
This Oil on board illustration by James Allen St. John measuring 34-3/4 x 24-1/2 inches (88.3 x 62.2 cm) was published as the first edition hardcover dust jacket for The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (A.C. McClurg & Co., 1922).

Original art for book dust jacket of "At the Earth's Core" (1922) by James Allen St. John

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $150,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 4 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
This oil on board illustration by James Allen St. John measuring 33 x 23-1/4 inches (83.8 x 59.1 cm) was published as the first edition hardcover dust jacket for At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (A.C. McClurg & Co., 1922). Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prolific and highly successful writer in the first half of last century, with his best known characters being Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars.

"Contra" (1988) NES Konami Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $150,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 9 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
This copy now holds the record price for a “Contra” game for very good reason. Sealed with a Wata 9.8 A+ rating makes this the best example known to the hobby at this point in time.

“Merry Christmas” – an NFT of the world’s first SMS

Aguttes

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €132,680 ($150,260)
Auction House: Aguttes | Date sold: 22 December 2021
Estimate: €100,000 to €200,000 ($113,250 to $226,500)
Official Auction Page
Non-fungible tokens were big in 2021. They’re about guaranteeing authenticity, but sadly, disingenuous behavior was rampant by many of the people selling them. One of the many legitimate items sold at auction as an NFT during the year was a replica of the communication protocol of the very first SMS ever sent. That was “MERRY CHRISTMAS” and unlike many of the NFTs sold, the payer of the €132,680 price received a small acrylic and mixed media installation to go with their digital asset.

Plan of the City of New York in North America, surveyed in the years 1766 & 1767.

Doyle New York

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $151,200
Auction House: Doyle New York | Date sold: 29 April 2021
Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000
Official Auction Page
Lieutenant Bernard Ratzer’s “1776 Plan of the City of New York in North America” has been described as "Perhaps the finest map of an American city and its environs produced in the eighteenth century.”

From the auction description: “Ratzer's map is a cartographic and artistic tour-de-force, a wealth of information of the colonial city on the brink of revolution, and the most accurate topography of the city to that date. Although not a commercial success when first issued in 1770 (that edition known in only about three copies), the map was re-issued with the imprint of Jeffreys & Faden in 1776 as war became imminent, and is frequently encountered dissected and folded for easier field use, sometimes in as many as 32 sections.”

John Graves Simcoe's privately printed journal of the American Revolution (1787)

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $151,200
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 13 April 2021
Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000
Official Auction Page
The Malling-Hansen Writing Ball was the first commercially available typewriter, invented in 1865. Rasmus Malling-Hansen exhibited the Writing Ball at the 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna, and the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878, but the ingenious design required hand production and the mass-produced Sholes and Glidden typewriter was more readily available and cost-effective, winning the day and consigning this machine to an historical footnote. In recent years the price of the Writing Ball at auction has climbed over the $100,000 mark, and this price sets a new benchmark.

Set of three torpedo boat navigator's silver open-faced Patek Philippe watches (1912)

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $151,200
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 9 December 2021
Estimate: $150,000 to $250,000
Official Auction Page
A “Navigator’s Trio” was a set of three chronometer tool watches that was once standard issue, and recommended by the official US Navy Observatory for: timing synchronized attacks, to be able to show sidereal, Greenwich Mean Time, and local time simultaneously, and to be able to identify departure time, destination time, and local time.

Most importantly, the use of three chronometers at once means that if one malfunctions, the correct time can be obtained from the other two.

This lot represents a possibly unique set of three torpedo boat navigator's trio that was made in 1912, and sold to the US Navy on 8 December 1917, where it was used on the US Zeppelin Airship Los Angeles (ZR-3).

Before this set of Torpedo Boat Watches made their way to the USS Los Angeles, or what the Navy called the ZR-3, it is likely that US Navy Observatory personnel used them on different astronomical observation expeditions, and other US Navy projects in which accurate time in three isolated time frames was essential.

This trio of watches ranks amongst the finest group of precision watches ever assembled and preserved. There are very few Navigator's Trios known today, and fewer still known to have been used on zeppelins, the world's largest flying machine, and a major asset of the field of aviation.

Albert Einstein Autograph Letter Signed with Gravitational Field Equations (1933)

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $152,920
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 20 May 2021
Estimate: $60,000 to $80,000
Official Auction Page
This letter was one of a number of Einstein documents sold at a special RR Auction sale of the archives of Ludwik Silberstein. The auction offered many historically significant items from the personal collection of Ludwik Silberstein, the author of one of the first English textbooks on the Theory of Relativity and a prominent mathematician and physicist.

The collection included four letters from Einstein, twelve handwritten letters by Max Planck, and correspondence from other Nobel Prize winners such as J. J. Thomson, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, and Albert Michelson.

These papers offer a window into the birth of science as we know it today, as theories were developed, tested, refined, and argued over by the greatest minds of the 20th century.

Not surprisingly, three Albert Einstein letters topped the high sales, with a handwritten one-page letter containing the famous "E = mc2" equation, selling for $1,243,707, this letter which includes Gravitational Field Equations selling for $152,920 and another typed Einstein letter with handwritten equations on the Spacetime Metric selling for $66,898.

The historical significance of these letters is beautifully articulated in the RR Auctions catalog, which can be viewed free of charge.

Early 19th century Planetarium, Lunarium, And Tellurium by Thomas Blunt

Bonhams

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £112,750 ($155,843)
Auction House: Bonhams | Date sold: 15 September 2021
Estimate: £60,000 to £80,000 ($82,932 to $110,576)
Official Auction Page
This early 19th Century orrery offers a wonderful and highly educational mechanical model of several different aspects of our solar and planetary systems. It is additionally rare in that it combines three mechanical models for the motions of the Earth around the sun (tellurium), the moon around the Earth (lunarium), and of the solar system (planetarium). The orrery is the work of well-known British instrument maker Thomas Blunt, and it last went to auction in New York in 2014 when it fetched $137,000 at a Sotheby’s auction.

Pokémon Red Version (1998) Nintendo GameBoy game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $156,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 29 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
A near perfect, sealed 1998 first-production copy of the first (along with Pokémon Blue) game in the Nintendo GameBoy series, this Pokémon Red Version is graded a Wata 9.8 A++ and took the auction price record for the game with this sale.

The spectacular climb in values of video games in 2021 is well illustrated with this particular game. On 20 November 2020, the record for this game was set at $20,400. On 2 April, 2021 it was raised to $72,000, and on 11 July, 2021 a copy sold for $132,000, establishing the record that this game broke on 29 October 2021. That’s a seven fold increase in value in less than 12 months.

Malling-Hansen "Writing Ball" (1867)

Auction Team Breker

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €135,000 ($158,234)
Auction House: Auction Team Breker | Date sold: 25 September 2021
Estimate: €60,000 to €90,000 ($70,326 to $105,489)
Official Auction Page
The Malling-Hansen Writing Ball was the first commercially available typewriter, invented in 1865. Rasmus Malling-Hansen exhibited the Writing Ball at the 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna, and the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878, but the ingenious design required hand production and the mass-produced Sholes and Glidden typewriter was more readily available and cost-effective, winning the day and consigning this machine to an historical footnote. In recent years the price of the Writing Ball at auction has climbed over the $100,000 mark, and this price sets a new benchmark.

"Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden" (1865-66) by Gregor Mendel

Ketterer Kunst

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €143,750 ($162,136)
Auction House: Ketterer Kunst | Date sold: 29 November 2021
Estimate: €30,000 to €50,000 ($33,837 to $56,395)
Official Auction Page
Translating into English as “Experiments on Plant Hybridization”, this publication may well turn out to be one of the bargains of the 2021 auction year.

It was written in 1865-66 by Augustinian Monk Johann Gregor Mendel (1822 - 1884), and it outlines the Mendelian inheritance mechanism by which evolution by natural selection could work.

Despite being widely distributed to more than 150 universities and places of higher learning, this paper was initially entirely ignored. Charles Darwin's 1859 book “On the Origin of Species” was controversial and hence not initially well received either, but it wasn’t ignored.

In 1900, three pioneer geneticists acknowledged Mendel's prior work in their research papers and subsequent research over the following half century established its breakthrough significance. It is now acknowledged as "one of the most important papers in the history of biology, and the foundation of modern genetics." The auctioned copy is one of the offprint of 40 copies circulated to Mendel's colleagues 150 years ago and only 14 copies are known to still exist. It required the passing of a century before we recognized Mendel's legacy.

According to “Grolier Medicine”, the paper ''reports the results of ten years of experimental work on artificial plant hybridization, during which he followed a program designed to test his working hypothesis that hereditary matter is discrete and particulate. Mendel bred and cultivated nearly thirty thousand pea plants, performing careful statistical analyses of the distribution of seven pairs of mutually exclusive seed and plant characteristics – a manageable number that allowed him to observe all possible combinations of traits.”

Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. An English translation of the paper is available on the web.

As previously stated, just 14 copies of the original 1865/66 publication are known and previous copies of the publication at auction have fetched $357,884 (£287,250) at Christie’s in 2019, $320,876 (£242,500) at Christie’s in 2016, $302,750 at Sotheby’s in 2001 (no link), $292,775 at Alexander Autographs in 2011 (no link) and $269,527 (€222,750) at Christie’s in 2004.
Indeed, though Mendel died in complete obscurity, he is now such a celebrity that a letter to his parents fetched $300,000 at Sotheby’s in 2018.

Star Wars Boba Fett Rocket-Firing Prototype Action Figure

Hake's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $165,200
Auction House: Hakes | Date sold: 30 June 2021
Estimate: $100,000 to $200,000
Official Auction Page
So large and omnipotent is the Star Wars collector universe that even sub-categories of sub-categories can generate six figure sums. One of the many merchandising monetisations of the Star Wars franchise was the creation of action figures

Star Wars devotees seem to have a particular connection with the Boba Fett character, the armored bounty hunter who appeared in the original and prequel film trilogies. Fett has apparently always been one of the most popular Star Wars action figures, and Kenner decided to produce a Boba Fett figure in 1979 with a spring-loaded plastic missile that launched from the figurine’s backpack. By the time the figure was made, the lawyers had decided to shelve the plastic missile idea instead of fielding potential law suits from the parents of grievously-injured children, and the missile-firing prototypes within Kenner all went home with the staff.

As one of the first genres of the collectibles industry to begin to generate tangible demand for limited-supply products, one of the rocket-firing prototypes sold at auction for $16,000 in 2003 and the early signs were there that a phenomena was brewing.

The Boba Fett Fan Club has an in-depth article on the sales figures achieved by the prototypes, and even though there is much disagreement about when, where and how much the toys have sold for over the last 40 years, the one thing everyone can agree on is that the missile-firing Boba Fett Action figure is the most expensive Star Wars toy in the world.

Remote Control Droid from "Rogue One; A Star Wars Story" (2016) & "Solo: A Star Wars Story" (2018)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £125,000 ($167,063)
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 11 November 2021
Estimate: £100,000 to £150,000 ($133,650 to $200,475)
Official Auction Page
This light-up remote control droid has two film credits on its resume: Gareth Edwards' “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and Ron Howard's “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” Whatsmore it appeared as three different droids across the two films.

"Birds of Europe" (1832-1837) by John Gould

Arader Galleries

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $168,000
Auction House: Arader Galleries | Date sold: 24 January 2021
Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000
Official Auction Page
From the Arader Galleries lot description: "First edition of Gould's first multi-volume ornithological work, as opposed to monograph. Gould undertook this work partly in an effort to redress the imbalance between the study of local and foreign ornithology. In his preface he stated his mission: "the Birds of Europe, in which we are, or ought to be, most interested, have not received that degree of attention which they naturally demand. The present work has been undertaken to supply that deficiency." Gould portrayed birds native to Europe in a manner that had only been thought appropriate for the colorful species of distant places, using specimens in museums and zoos in Holland, Germany and Switzerland. In this way he managed to draw much popular interest back to native birds, which were suddenly considered equally beautiful to exotic species."

"Description de l'Egypte" (Second edition 1820-1830)

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $175,000
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 October 2021
Estimate: $150,000 to $250,000
Official Auction Page
The Description de l'Égypte (Description of Egypt) was a series of publications, appearing first in 1809 and continuing until the final volume appeared in 1829, which aimed to comprehensively catalog all known aspects of ancient and modern Egypt as well as its natural history. It is the collaborative work of about 160 civilian scholars and scientists, known popularly as the savants, who accompanied Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798 to 1801 as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, as well as about 2000 artists and technicians, including 400 engravers, who would later compile it into a full work.

This copy formerly belonged to Baron de Nervo's, and was described by Christie's as a rare complete set of the second edition, handsomely bound with custom display cabinet.

The record price for a complete First Edition set of Description de l'Egypte was set at EUR1,095,400 at a Christie’s auction in May 2011.

Stormtrooper Helmet from "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" (1983)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £131,250 ($175,416)
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 11 November 2021
Estimate: £100,000 to £150,000 ($133,650 to $200,475)
Official Auction Page
Whereas Stormtrooper helmets from the original trilogy once appeared at auction regularly, they’re not being seen as much these days. The first for some time was seen at Propstore last year when a Stormtrooper Helmet from "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977) sold for $137,500.

This stormtrooper helmet was used in Richard Marquand's “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” and it is believed that only around 50 helmets were produced for the film, so it’s both a trophy and an investment that will likely always appreciate in value.

Screen-worn Stormtrooper helmets have a spectacular history at auction over the last decade, with previous screen-worn helmets at auction having fetched $245,000, $240,000, $196,756 (£159,900), $179,090 (£135,300), $137,500, $126,800 (£65,000), $122,985 (£86,500) and $121,847 (£79,950). They have a near-permanent spot in our end of year auction round-up because there are enough of them to ensure they regularly come to auction. As you can see, this one fell in the middle of the pack. There are also many variations on helmets from Star Wars, with the record for a Stormtrooper helmet at $245,000, the record for a Tiefighter helmet at $ 287,876 (£221,400) and the record for a Snow Trooper helmet at $276,750 (note that the linked pages do not include buyer's premium).

Nintendo World Championships 1990 Grey Cartridge for NES Nintendo

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $180,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 9 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
This simple grey cartridge has had a very interesting life. It was created for the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, and remains the highest graded cartridge known from those titles. It made the news at the beginning of 2020 when it was announced that Metropolis Collectibles had brokered a trade between two unidentified collectors, to swap a 1990 Grey Nintendo World Championships Wata 8.0 Cart (#0273 - this cart)] for a 2000 Playoff Contenders Tom Brady Autographed #144 Gem Mint 10 football card. In January 2021, the same card that was swapped for this cart sold at PWCC for $555,988, so you can draw your own conclusions as to which collector got the best end of the deal.

"Essay on the Principle of Population"(1798) by Thomas Malthus

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $187,500
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 October 2021
Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000
Official Auction Page
This is a First Edition of Malthus's famous economic treatise regarding the relationship between food supply and population. With the full title of An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society suggests that the population of a community increases geometrically, while food supplies increase arithmetically.

He theorizes that humans have a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, and that as an increase in population occurs, the food supply becomes insufficient and populations tend to grow until the lower class suffers hardship, want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease.

Jimmy Wales’ personal iMac that was used in the creation of Wikipedia

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $187,500
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 16 December 2021
Estimate on Request
Official Auction Page
This is the computer that was used by Jimmy Wales when he started Wikipedia in 2000 and although $187,500 for an iMac seems a bit crazy right now, Wikipedia will probably be with us 1,000 years from now and this computer will be a genuine museum display of the first order by then. Digital memorabilia began its run towards immortality this year and this artifact was one of many that will become relevant to the history books (or memory implants or whatever form knowledge takes) in the distant future.

Christopher Reeve's "Superman" Costume from "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" (Warner Bros., 1987)

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $187,500
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 7 November 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
To more recent Superman devotees, Christopher Reeve is probably the best-known actor associated with the role of Superman but that relevance changes for each and every collector, and at the end of the day, this costume sold for just over half that of the price fetched by the George Reeves' Superman Costume from the 1952-1958 TV Series on the same day, in consecutive lots. An indication of the strength of the movie memorabilia marketplace at present is that this costume sold for $27,500 when it last went to auction at Profiles in History in April 2004. The record for a Christopher Reeve Superman costume was set last year when a costume from Superman III (Warner Bros., 1983) fetched $200,000 at Julien's Auctions in Hollywood.

"Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison" (1637) by René Descartes

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £137,500 ($190,383)
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 14 July 2021
Estimate: £70,000 to £100,000 ($96,922 to $138,460)
Official Auction Page
Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences (English: Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences) is one of the most influential works in history.

French philosopher René Descartes (1596 – 1650) was a mathematician and scientist and in this book, he codified the scientific method and created the foundation of all modern scientific thought.

This sale marks the second-most-valuable copy of the book at auction, behind a copy sold by Christie’s for $297,789 (£162,050) on 2 June 2004 and pushing out copies sold for $171,288 (£92,960 | Sotheby's | November 4, 2004), $171,000 (Christie's | October 9, 2001) and $170,750 (Sotheby's | November 2001 | no link).

"GoldenEye 007" (1997) Nintendo N64 Game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $192,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 29 October 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
Regarded by many as the best ever video game based on a movie, more than 8 million copies were sold of this game. Yet another example of the trajectory of the games marketplace can be seen with this game. On 10 July 2020 another sealed GoldenEye 007 Wata 9.8 A++ N64 Nintendo game sold for $19,200. Just on 15 months later, this game with an identical WATA grading sold for ten times the amount.

The most expensive car racing helmet in history

Image copyright Phil Hill Family Archive

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $193,750
Auction House: Gooding & Co | Date sold: 20 February 2021
Estimate: $80,000 to $110,000
Official Auction Page
The price fetched on the auction block has become the ultimate arbiter of the significance of world’s most important cultural objects, and this year it anointed a new and quite different motorsport objet d’art.

One of the very earliest motorsport helmets, made by the Herbert Johnson Hat Company, and worn by America’s first world F1 champion, Phil Hill, is now the most valuable race-worn motorsport helmet in history.

Made of shellacked canvas and lined with cork, the highly accessorized helmet is of exquisite quality and design, and is a technological landmark in that it is the first logical step in the progression from the leather flying helmets worn by drivers pre-WW2, to the technologically-advanced helmets of today - it is arguably one of the very first motorsport helmets to offer any accident-mitigation properties.

Phil Hill (1927 – 2008) is the only American-born racing car driver to have won the World Formula 1 championship. Hill won the World F1 Drivers’ Title in 1961, also winning the world’s most important race (the 24 Hours of Le Mans) in 1958, 1961 and 1962.

While Hill’s helmet obviously held enormous appeal to the predominantly American automotive collector marketplace, and has assumed a place in auction folklore commensurate with Hill’s stature and from a technological perspective, there’s still gold out there that isn’t being recognized. At the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed, an almost identical helmet worn by five-time World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio, arguably the greatest of them all, sold for £22,562 ($22,280). Add 50 years to that equation to allow historical perspective to kick in, and Fangio’s helmet might be worth an order of magnitude or two more.

"16th-century terrestrial globe" by Francois Demongenet

Hanson's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £145,000 ($192,952)
Auction House: Hanson's | Date sold: 16 December 2021
Estimate: £20,000 to £30,000 ($26,614 to $39,921)
Official Auction Page
Everyone loves a barn find or an attic find, and this is a classic. This 16th-century terrestrial globe was one of a number of objects brought along by a local to a Hanson’s valuation day, with little expectation that any of them were valuable. Indeed, the woman had purchased the globe for £150 at a Welsh antiques fair “during the pandemic”.

Hansons Jim Spencer knew immediately that the globe was authentic and valuable, but even with subsequent research, was unable to pinpoint the value as it is just so rare … and old. This globe was created before any European had set foot on Australia and although Hanson’s consulted with a number of museums to ascertain its history, none were able to help because no museum had anything like it.

Eventually, Hanson’s was able to identify the globe as being created circa 1550/60 by, or a derivative of, Francois Demongenet.

With guidance of £20,000 to £30,000, the globe went to auction and finished with the remarkable result of £145,000 ($192,952).

Autograph letter signed ‘A. Einstein' (1915)

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £150,000 ($198,390)
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 December 2021
Estimate: £60,000 to £90,000 ($79,356 to $119,034)
Official Auction Page
Written in 1915 at the time Einstein was finalising the general theory of relativity, this autograph signed letter is rich in scientific content, covering the equivalence principle, magnetism and the Einstein-de Haas experiment. There’s only one Albert Einstein, and his place in history will never be diminished.

"Kunyu Wanguo Quantu" (late 17th/early 18th century) originally by Matteo Ricci on a Japanese screen

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $200,000
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 October 2021
Estimate: $60,000 to $90,000
Official Auction Page
Matteo Ricci was an Italian Jesuit priest and missionary who arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in. By adopting the language and culture of the country, he gained favour in China, which was normally closed to foreigners, and his skills as an astronomer and cartographer saw him gain enormous influence with the Wanli Emperor, becoming the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601.

Ricci also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time in history.

Though Ricci was a notable pioneer in attempting mutual comprehension between China and the West, it is his cartographic achievements that he is best known for. He created the first European-style world map in Chinese ("Da Ying Quan Tu" or “Complete Map of the Great World”) in 1584 with a much improved and expanded version known as the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu in 1602. These maps helped put China’s geographical relationship to the rest of the world in perspective.

This is an early manuscript copy of Ricci's monumental wall map executed by a skilled Japanese copyist.

"The Wealth of Nations" (1776) by Adam Smith

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $200,000
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 14 September 2021
Estimate: $80,000 to $120,000
Official Auction Page
With the full title of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, this book was first published in 1776 at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and is regarded as the first great work in classical economics, and even today is still one of the most cited books in the social sciences published before 1950, behind only Karl Marx's Capital.

An unlikely best-seller in its time, first edition copies such as this reach auction most years and generally sell in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, with the dedication copy fetching $307,878 (£182,500) at a Christies auction in May, 2014 and Adam Smith’s own copy setting the price record in 2018 when it sold for £908,750 ($1,150,270).

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Signed Issue of Macworld #1 (February 1984)

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $201,021
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 19 August 2021
Estimate: $50,000 to $70,000
Official Auction Page
In our preview of this auction, we wrote of this lot as follows: "The vendor of this magazine once valued it at $1,000,000 but it appears that he's prepared to cop $50,000 now. It's quite likely he'll get at least that amount, as a previous copy of the same issue signed only by Jobs sold for $47,775 in 2018, a Mac OS X technical manual signed by Jobs in 2001 sold for $41,807 in 2018, and a signed copy of NewsWeek with Jobs on the cover fetched $50,588 in 2017. A Macintosh System Tools Version 6.0 floppy disk signed by Jobs fetched $84,115 in 2019, so our best guess is that this magazine will fetch $80,000 plus as it is not dedicated to anyone in particular as the previous $47,775 copy was."

First Edition of "Les voyages du sieur de Champlain xaintongeois" (1613) by Samuel de Champlain

Freemans

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $201,600
Auction House: Freemans | Date sold: 18 February 2021
Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000
Official Auction Page
This is a first edition of the second published account of the four voyages Samuel de Champlain made to America between 1604 and 1613 and it is complete in that it has all three engraved folding plates and eight engraved folding maps. The maps are the earliest accurate depiction of the New England coastline, preceding John Smith's map by several years.

This book is now very rare, and only two complete copies and three incomplete copies of "Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain" have sold at auction in the last thirty years. A bargain at this price because Bloomsbury sold a copy in 2009 for $780,000, Siebert sold a copy in 1999 for $398,500 and the most recent copy at auction prior to this one fetched $425,000 at Christie’s in 2016, and becoming one of the 50 most valuable scientific documents of all-time.

Large (21 inch - 53.3 cm) Iridescent Ammonite

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $201,600
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 3 December 2021
Estimate: $120,000 to $180,000
Official Auction Page
Ammolite is an opal-like organic gemstone found primarily along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains of North America. It is made of the fossilized shells of ammonites. In 1981, ammolite was given official gemstone status by the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO), the same year commercial mining of ammolite began. This exceptional specimen measures 21 inches (53.3 cm) at its longest proportion, and weighs 18.7 pounds (8.5 kg). On its bronzed rotating stand, it is 29 inches tall and displays mineralization in ammolite on both faces, one with shimmering and iridescent reds, golds, and greens, the other with a rainbow of blues, greens, yellows, purples, deep browns, and tan. The colors shift in hue and intensity as they diffract light from different viewing angles.

"Final Fantasy" (1990) NES Nintendo game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $204,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 9 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
The highest grade (WATA 9.8 A++ Sealed) known of this first game of the Japanese anthology science fantasy media franchise known globally as Final Fantasy. To date, across 15 versions, Final Fantasy has sold 164 million software units, making it one of the most popular games of all-time.

Lunar Panorama - The First Earthrise recorded by Mankind, 23 August 1966

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £150,000 ($206,475)
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 26 October 2021
Estimate: £20,000 to £40,000 ($27,530 to $55,060)
Official Auction Page
From the “Lot Essay” in Christie’s Auction Description: “This is the large-format first version, assembled by NASA Langley Research Center following transmission to Earth on August 23, 1966, of one of the most important and emblematic photographs of space exploration. This copy, by repute, was displayed on the wall at Boeing's offices in Seattle.

This high resolution photograph was taken looking west with the 610mm telephoto lens over the 233-km Crater Pasteur (cut off at right) and the 173-km Crater Hilbert (cut off at left). The view is centered on a point of latitude: 14.68° S, longitude 104.34° E on the lunar farside.

The photograph gave for the first time to humans a view of their Home Planet as a globe in space. It was also the first time humans saw their planet from the vantage point of another world.”

Persian Safavid gilt-brass astrolabe, circa 1660

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £151,200 ($208,097)
Auction House: Sotheby’s | Date sold: 31 March 2021
Estimate: £100,000 to £150,000 ($137,630 to $206,445)
Official Auction Page

This fine Safavid gilt-brass astrolabe was made around 1660 for an important Safavid theologian, Mirza Razi al-Din Muhammad al-Husayni al-Musawi, who was also Imam Jum’ah and a teacher in Isfahan. (died in 1701)

This astrolabe was made by two of the leading instrument-makers of Safavid Iran in the mid-seventeenth century: Muhammad Husayn ibn Muhammad Baqir al-Yazdi (the maker) and Muhammad Mahdi al-Yazdi (the decorator).

That the inscription on the throne of the Astrolabe tells us it was made for an important Imam and theologian proves the high esteem in which these two craftsmen were held at the Safavid court.

"Eagle Transporter" filming miniature from "Space: 1999" (T.V. Series, 1975 - 1977)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £156,250 ($208,828)
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 11 November 2021
Estimate: £80,000 to £120,000 ($106,920 to $160,380)
Official Auction Page
"Space: 1999" is a British science-fiction television program that ran for two series from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, set in the year 1999, nuclear waste stored on the Moon's far side explodes, knocking the Moon out of orbit and sending it, as well as the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, hurtling uncontrollably into space. It was the most expensive series produced for British television up to that time, and this is one of the wonderful filming miniatures created for the show

This transporter appeared in 45 of Space: 1999's 48 episodes, making it the most screen-used model of the series, and it screen-matches the Eagle seen in series finale, "The Dorcons", through its markings and details on the bottom of the footpads. It was also used in nine of the 11 crash-landing sequences, meaning it had to be repeatedly rebuilt and repaired. In recent years it has been lovingly and carefully restored by master model maker David Sisson.

NeXSTEP software package (1993) signed by Steve Jobs—the object-oriented forefather of OS X and iOS

RR Auction

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $210,235
Auction House: RR Auction | Date sold: 19 August 2021
Estimate: $30,000 to $40,000
Official Auction Page
Steve Jobs memorabilia is coming of age at auction, and we suspect a decade or five from now, will be worth considerably more. The presence of this Steve Jobs signature transformed this box of obsolete software from landfill to auction block unobtanium, largely because the software was once the the ground-breaking object-oriented forefather of OS X and iOS

Autograph signed letter by Charles Darwin to British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1872)

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £162,500 ($214,923)
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 December 2021
Estimate: £30,000 to £50,000 ($39,678 to $66,130)
Official Auction Page
An insight into the resistance encountered when Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” book was first released, this autograph signed letter from Charles Darwin to his friend and collaborator, Alfred Russel Wallace seeks to formulate a rebuttal to a critic.

"The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" (1998) N64 Nintendo game

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $228,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 11 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
Considered by some to be the greatest game of its era, and some would argue all-time, “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” is destined to become one of the keystones to any video game connoisseur’s collection, and this particular copy is the best on record at Wata 9.8 A++ Sealed.

"Theatrum orbis terrarum" (1592) by Abraham Ortelius

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $237,500
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 15 October 2021
Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000
Official Auction Page
Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World) consists of two distinct elements - text and maps - and this format had not been done prior to this publication, meaning Ortelius created the first modern atlas in 1570. It was the first time that a collection of maps of similar design and scale were bound into one volume. The name ‘atlas’ derived from Atlas in Greek mythology who held up the world on his shoulders.

Theatrum was the most expensive book of its day, yet became a runaway bestseller, going into 37 editions and seven languages. The first edition came out in 1570 with 50 maps, and as cartographic knowledge increased rapidly during this period, so did the number of maps in each subsequent edition.

Ortelius is also believed to be the first person to imagine that the continents of the world were joined prior to drifting to their present positions.

The record price fetched for a copy of this book was set in July 2000, when an illuminated copy bound as a gift from Cosimo II de' Medici fetched $419,240. A very rare English edition of this work is currently for sale at Arader Galleries in New York for $650,000.

Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) Ressikan Flute, Box and Costume Continuity Script from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (T.V. Series, 1987 - 1994)

Propstore

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $237,500
Auction House: Propstore | Date sold: 1 July 2021
Estimate: $50,000 to $70,000
Official Auction Page
"The Inner Light" was the 125th episode overall and the 25th and penultimate episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The episode was first broadcast on 1 June 1992 and is considered by fandom to be one of the best of the entire series, as well as being Stewart's favorite episode.

Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) Ressikan flute, box and a costume continuity script from that episode and subsequently in the series, is one of the most memorable and important props from the show. It was sold at auction by Christie’s for $48,000 in 2006 when it held an important auction of Star Trek memorabilia. The massive appreciation of movie memorabilia values in the 15 years since that auction is evident from a brief look through the prices fetched that day

"Untitled (Banana)" (1985) by Andy Warhol

Christie's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $250,000
Auction House: Christie's | Date sold: 27 May 2021
Estimate Unknown
Official Auction Page
There are two very different perspectives on this particular lot and the four other artworks offered by Christie’s on the same day. All five lots were NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) of a digital artwork created by Andy Warhol in the mid-1980s and recovered from obsolete floppy disks in 2014. The artwork was created at 320 x 200 pixels and once the floppy disks were excavated, the artwork was “upscaled” to 6000 x 4500 pixels by the Carnegie-Mellon Computer Club and subsequently turned into NFTs.

The authenticity of this entire exercise has been questioned, but thanks to the name Andy Warhol and his dominance of the art world, the reworked 320 x 200 pixel images sold for $1,170,000, $870,000, $562,500, $525,000 and $250,000. This is the cheapest of the artwork NFTs. The others will make our annual listings as they unfold over the next week. Christie’s overview and explanation of the sale can be found here.

Fort Defiance: 1836 Joseph Chadwick Map of Col. James Fannin's Defenses at the Historic Site of the Battle of Goliad.

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $250,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 28 February 2021
Estimate: $80,000 to $120,000
Official Auction Page
One of the oft-used terms for collectibles is “storied objects” and this map of Fort Defiance drawn up just prior to the Battle of Goliad has so much provenance and history in the back story that there have been numerous volumes written about it.

From the auction description: “The story of the Texas Revolution became the stuff of legends, and the tragic massacre of Col. Fannin and some 400 of his men at Goliad was, along with the fall of the Alamo, one of the seminal events which rallied furious Texians and inspired them in their rout of General Santa Anna's army at San Jacinto. The map drawn by his adjutant Joseph Chadwick, sent to his mother shortly before he perished with Fannin, remained in the hands of the Chadwick family for generations and was largely unknown to scholars. It's sole public appearance came in 1966, when the family allowed the original hand-drawn map and the published version offered here to be pictured in an American Heritage Magazine article discussing the relationship with his friend and mentor, Western artist George Catlin. The printed map left the family's possession at some later date, but the whereabouts of the original hand-drawn map are at present unknown.

No other example of the printed map is known to Texas history scholars. It is not listed in Streeter's Bibliography of Texas or any other reference work. The extensive archives at the University of Texas include only an image taken from the American Heritage article (a copy of which is included with the map). Ron Tyler speculates that it's rarity suggests that the map was printed in very limited numbers for the Chadwick family. The appearance of this apparently unique example presents an extraordinary opportunity for institutions and advanced Texana collectors to acquire one of the earliest and most important contemporary printed records of the Texas Revolution.”

"Type-2 Phaser Pistol" from "Star Trek: The Original Series" (Paramount, 1966-1969)

Heritage Auctions

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $250,000
Auction House: Heritage Auctions | Date sold: 16 July 2021
No Estimate
Official Auction Page
While Star Trek sowed the imaginative seeds that have catalyzed countless sunrise industries, from private space travel, through to artificial intelligence and robotics, one of the technologies that seems to have most caught the imagination was the concept of directed energy weapons as personified by the Type-2 phaser pistol.

Measured by the prices fetched at auction, the phaser has become one of the defining icons of American pop culture. Though still well shy of Han Solo's Jedi blaster gun ($562,500) and Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber ($450,000), it became one of the top 10 most valuable movie weapons in history with this sale, beating the previous record of $192,500 for a Type-2 phaser pistol

Andy Warhol's Bust of Leonardo da Vinci (ca 18th century)

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: $252,000
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 28 April 2021
Estimate: $200,000 to $300,000
Official Auction Page
This 18th century bust of Leonardo da Vinci was a constant presence in Andy Warhol’s workshop from the mid-1970s onwards, photographed numerous times with celebrities from Bianca Jagger through to Keith Haring and a famous Lizzie Himmel image taken in 1985 of Warhol with his protegé Jean-Michel Basquiat.

"Relation de ce qui s'est passé en la Nouvelle France en l'année 1639 … and 1640, and ..." (1641-1673)

Sotheby's

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: €226,800 ($256,556)
Auction House: Sotheby's | Date sold: 8 December 2021
Estimate: €20,000 to €30,000 ($22,624 to $33,936)
Official Auction Page
The rather odd title for this book translates as “Relation of what happened in New France in the Year 1639 (and 1640, 1642, … all the way through to 1672” The complete set covers the annual report of the Jesuit missionaries in Canada at that time and it offers an accurate picture of life in Canada at that time. Complete sets of these reports are very rare and in 2018 a very complete set from 1635 to 1673 sold at Sotheby’s for €125,000. This year, though the set isn’t as complete as that previous copy, the price at auction almost doubled.

2 ¾-inch Pocket Globe (circa 1675) by Joseph Moxon

Bonhams

Final price including Buyers’ Premium: £187,750 ($259,508)
Auction House: Bonhams | Date sold: 15 September 2021
Estimate: £15,000 to £20,000 ($20,733 to $27,644)
Official Auction Page
The prize of The Stephen Edell Collection of Pocket and Table Globes that sold at Bonhams on 15 Sept