The highlights of the 2020 science, sci-fi and technology auction year: less than $25,000

It would be fair to say that 2020 was an outlier year as far as the auction marketplace is concerned. The global pandemic meant all of the big players faced battles getting their usual live auctions to happen on both sides of the Atlantic, and records were continually broken for online auction sales as the world adapted.

Hence, it was entirely natural that bargains flew underneath the radar. Some auction marketplaces did exceedingly well, while others could not maintain the momentum of prior years without public attendance sales. Every marketplace had extraordinary results and that's set to continue for at least the duration of 2021, given the bleak COVID-19 outlook across Europe, America and Asia.

Some, such as the sports card and collectible marketplace, had a year that will go down in folklore – it’s one of the many alternative asset classes seemingly legitimized by the pandemic as being a hedge against economic conditions. Records were smashed.

America is where the "investments of passion" marketplace thrives far more than in any other country. The sort of wealth that created the term "money is no object" was coined in America because more outrageous wealth exists in America than anywhere else ... and the people who control that wealth all grew up absorbed in American culture, so the market for sports and entertainment memorabilia can be expected to be remain buoyant for the long-term future.

The rapid growth of the sports and entertainment collectibles industry over the last few decades has created an interesting model that might well take hold in other genres. Comics, video games and sports cards are now traded in massive volumes online, with a system that is incredibly advanced and accessible compared to other collectibles marketplaces that haven’t modernized by embracing the internet. Certification and online trading are the norm and it is serving the industry well.

As the collectibles industry moves more online than ever before, it’s becoming clear that an industry shake-out is inevitable. Major bricks-and-mortar auction houses take around 25 percent of the value of a collectible (adding buyers and sellers fees) and it will be interesting to see how long the marketplace is prepared to pay that premium when systems offering far fewer frictional losses are available. By the time it is safe to go back into the auction room, this phase might well have played out, with new winners and losers in every facet of the auction industry.

We’ve been covering the most valuable scientific documents sold each year for more than a decade, and summarizing the sale of the most valuable scientific documents annually since 2016.

At that time, we created an overview of the marketplace for the world's most valuable scientific books and manuscripts.
We also counted down the top 50 most valuable scientific documents sold at auction.
The most valuable scientific documents of all-time #50-41
The most valuable scientific documents of all-time #40-31
The most valuable scientific documents of all-time #30-21
The most valuable scientific documents of all-time #20-11
The most valuable scientific documents of all-time #10-1

Since then, our annual summaries have grown ever larger:
The 50 most valuable scientific documents of 2016
The 50 most valuable scientific documents of 2017
The 60 most valuable scientific artifacts of 2018
The highlights of the 2019 science, sci-fi and technology auction year

This year we’ve expanded the coverage again, with three extensive feature articles. This is the first in that series: The highlights of the 2020 science, sci-fi and technology auction year: less than $25,000.

Over the next week, we’ll be adding similar articles for The highlights of the 2020 science, sci-fi and technology auction year: $25,001 to $100,000 and The highlights of the 2020 science, sci-fi and technology auction year: above $100,000

Take your time with this article – it's a fascinating smorgasbord of scientifically and culturally significant gems, and it could be very easy to get lost in here.

$47 | Italian film poster for : "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage Auctions
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage Auctions

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial (E.T.), who is stranded on Earth. The concept was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce, so given the prevalence of divorce in modern society, and of the imaginary friends of children, it wasn't really an accident the movie resonated with the public to the extent it did.

The movie quickly surpassed Star Wars at the box office to become the highest-grossing film of all time. It was eventually passed in earnings by Jurassic Park, eleven years later.

Posters for this movie have not done as well as might be expected on the auction block because the immediate success of the movie saw greater distribution, more promotion, re-releases and many more posters than normal for a big movie, and hence relative oversupply.

Heritage Auctions

The record price for a poster for this movie is over $3000, with the highest price fetched in 2020 being $2,040 for the English-language poster directly above.

$52 | Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) movie poster

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Movie posters have been a massive business for many decades now, and powerful imagery that resonates with a story
can 27" X 40").

$53 | 19 Publicity photographs from the movie "Assignment Outer Space" (1962)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

This lot of 19 8x10" lobby cards (publicity photos created for display in the lobby of theaters) from the 1960 movie "Assignment: Outer Space" sold for $53 - a bargain considering the clarity of vision of how cinema envisioned space travel just 60 years ago. The movie was made in Italy in 1960 and released in Europe as Space-Men, being re-titled as "Assignment: Outer Space”for the American market release in 1961 after space flight had become a reality.

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, becoming the first man to go into space and return (the USSR didn’t publicize its prior failures) and on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard Jr. became the first American in space. The American release and voice-dubbing was an attempt to cash in on the public interest in the space race, but a look through the 19 images will soon dispel any visions of authenticity of the experience.

The movie can now be viewed online for free in its entirety.

$60 | Cloud Computing Desktop Momento

Barneby's

Auction House: Unknown
Date Sold: January 25, 2020
Official Auction Page: Barneby's

There's an auction phenomena referred to as the winner’s curse wherein the winner is the bidder with the most optimistic evaluation of the asset and therefore will tend to overestimate and overpay. The larger the audience, the greater the likelihood of irrational behavior and the higher the price. This seems to be born out here, where an item that is still available in the shops went to auction and sold for more than it could be purchased at retail.

$65 | Iron-On T-Shirt Decals Printer's Proof for the movie “Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi” (1983).

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Almost certainly a unicorn, this 37-year-old relic dates from the release of the all-time-great sci-fi movie and is a printers proof of a commercial iron-on t-shirt decal sold at the time. The proof measures 63.5 x 96.5 cm (25" X 38").

$138 | Westworld (1973) movie poster (27" X 41")

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The science-fiction Western thriller Westworld was MGM's biggest box-office success of 1973, being written and directed by Michael Crichton. The film was from an original screenplay by Crichton, and served as his feature directorial debut. Posters from the film have traded for more than $300, depending on quality and condition.

$144 | Space Family Robinson #1-9

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: January 19, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The first nine issues of the once popular comic, were produced between December, 1962 and 1964, predating the Lost in Space television series which aired from 1965 to 1968.

$168 | Space Family Robinson #1

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: July 13, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

With a CGC grading, any comic book or card immediately becomes a known quantity, and hence an investment.

$168 | The War of the Worlds (1938)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 2, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The War of the Worlds is a 1898 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells., first serialized in 1897 by Pearson's Magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the United States. It spawned six feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It was most memorably dramatized in a 1938 radio program directed by and starring Orson Welles that allegedly caused public panic among radio listeners who did not know the Martian invasion was fictional. At $168, this book represents a moment in time where the public first becomes aware of the possibilities of space travel. Having been published just subsequent to Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast, the front cover of the novel refers to the event.

$204 | Silver Age Sci-Fi Group of five comics (Various Publishers, 1960s)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: February 3, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

We've listed this lot of five diverse sci-fi comics selling for $204 to illustrate how prices of well preserved copies have escalated. Many people who delighted in the comics in their youth have suddenly realized that had they kept and preserved those comics, they would now be worth hundreds, perhaps thousands, and occasionally millions of dollars.

$216 | Gerry Acerno Weird Science #20 Cover Re-Creation Original Art (2008)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: August 31, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

A reproduction of the 1953 Weird Science #20 cover (originally created by Wally Wood) created in 2008 by Gerry Acerno. Rendered in ink over graphite on Bristol board with an image size of 15" x 21".

$320 | Bill Wyman’s personal copy of Robert Heinlein’s “The Rolling Stones”

Julien's

Auction House: Julien's
Date Sold: September 9, 2020
Official Auction Page: Julien's

Bill Wyman was the bass player for The Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1993, collecting along the way detailed archives of the most successful and durable rock band in history. In 2020, 84-year-old Wyman sold his extensive archive (the catalogue required three volumes), with several of his guitars and other memorabilia selling for prices that now number them among the most valuable of their type in history.

The Rolling Stones were named after the Muddy Waters song “Rollin’ Stone”, but Wyman collected several other mementos of media using the same title, with the 1952 science fiction classic by all-time-great Robert Heinlein the pick of the bunch. The plot for the novel could easily have struck a familiar chord for Wyman: The Stones in Heinlein's novel are a family of "Loonies" (the slang name for residents of the moon), who renovate a used spaceship and drift around the solar system having adventures.

$336 | 19 lobby cards from the movie “Planet of the Apes” (1968)

Heritage Auctions/HA.com

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Single lobby cards from significant movies regularly sell for more than $10,000, so this set of 19 lobby cards from the 52-year-old sci-fi movie classic Planet of the Apes, were a bargain. They're all in the image gallery and definitely worth a look for fans of this early film franchise.

$348 | The Pop-Up Flash Gordon Tournament of Death Book (1935)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 7, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Buck Rogers was the first comic strip space hero, but Flash Gordon became just as prominent as media diversified and newspaper comic strips turned into stand-alone comics, novellas, movies, radio shows and then TV shows … and pop-up books were just one of the media trends along the way. This rarity from 85 years ago, sold for $348 in very good condition.

$372 | 1966 Topps “Lost in Space” 5-Cent Wax Pack

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: March 8, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Merchandising to take advantage of the popularity of television shows became the norm in the 1960s, and although it aired on TV for just three seasons (1965 to 1968), this program was one of the most watched science fiction television shows of our era. . Much like Star Trek and The Monkees, Lost in Space was a television series that aired for a short time – just three seasons and 83 episodes from 1965 to 1968 but having far greater influence than the media measurement tools of the time could foresee, partially due to a vastly undetected audience, and partly due to syndication and the rise of cable TV. This exceptionally well preserved 5-cent wax pack is 54 years old, but will no doubt trigger memories for sci-fi fans. That’s quite some fiscal appreciation - from 5c to $372.

$465 | Genuine spy watch - Protona Minifon Mi-51 - the first successful miniature wire recorder built in 1951

Fellows

Price in sale currency: €430
Auction House: Auction Team Breker
Date Sold: May 19, 2020
Official Auction Page: Auction Team Breker
Great profile of the Protona Minifon: Crypto Museum Page

This device was first produced in 1951 at the time that Ian Fleming was first penning his James Bond novels. Though Bond subsequently became famous for his spy gadgets, things were rather humdrum in real life and this device was a key piece of espionage technology, one of the first Cold War-era spy innovations, and the first major advancement in the black art since the miniature camera several decades earlier.

Auction Team Breker

The Protona Minifon Mi-51 was a concealed sound recording device produced by Monske & Co. of Hamburg, Germany for intelligence agencies and police forces around the world. It was the first recording device produced in the form of a watch. The watch acted as the remote microphone, and attached to the rather bulky recorder by wire. It must have been nerve-wracking to have worn this device in the field, as the recorder is bulky and had to be carried on the person doing the recording. What's more, the watch didn’t function, being permanently stopped on 7:25. Indeed, if you weren’t wearing long cuffs, the wire to the watch would have been easily exposed. Given it is such a landmark piece of technology, the stories related to this device are many and colorful. Two that we have been able to validate were that the wire recording mechanism of this watch was also used in fashioning the first black box flight recorder prototype, and Jack Ruby, the assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald, apparently owned one.

While this Protona Minifon Mi-51 outfit sold for just $465, complete sets usually sell for more than $1000 and the record price of $2640 was set in 2007 at a Christie’s auction. Most importantly, at $465, the price of this landmark piece of practical technology is paltry in comparison to its significance.

$660 | Movie poster for “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” (1990)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

At $660, this striking image for the 10th Anniversary on Gold Mylar and measuring 27" X 41", is a bargain that will appreciate forever.

$738 | 19th Century Nachet French Brass Microscope

Nest Egg Auctions

Auction House: Nest Egg Auctions
Date Sold: December 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Nest Egg Auctions

Galileo Galilei gave the world its first practical telescope and microscopes, and this microscope, produced at roughly the half way point between Galileo and now, shows this state-of-the-art scientific device at its most beautiful.

$750 | Destination Moon (1950) Set of eight (11" X 14") lobby cards

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

As the dominant object in the night sky, the moon has been at the very forefront of science fiction since the beginning of the genre when Georges Méliès created the first science fiction film, Le Voyage dans la Lune in 1902. This set of eight 11" X 14" lobby cards from the 1950 feature film Destination Moon (Pathé) represents great value for the science fiction collector.

$804 | A Sextant of the German Imperial Navy

Hermann Historica

Price in sale currency: €680
Auction House: Hermann Historica
Date Sold: October 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Hermann Historica

The sextant is a navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two objects (one usually the horizon). It has been in use globally since 1731 and is used as a back-up on every ocean-going ship to this day. This enabler of celestial navigation had its earliest mention in history in the unpublished writings of Isaac Newton. The example here is a sextant from the German Imperial Navy made between the wars, making it around 100 years old.

$956 | Thacher Cylindrical Slide Rule Circa 1920

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: November 5, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

This marvelous device is a cylindrical slide rule that was patented in 1881 by American Edwin Thacher, who had come up with the idea while using a conventional slide rule in his initial occupation of designing railway bridges. This particular model was manufactured exactly 100 years ago, and at the time, was the most powerful computer you could buy. There’s one in the Smithsonian, you can read Thacher’s own words in his patent application, and you can buy a replication of a book written about it in 1884. It still works just as well now as it did 100 years ago and the best part of the story is the reason Thacher invented the cylindrical rule – it enabled him to calculate with the accuracy of a conventional slide rule 59 feet long – we’re guessing that a lot of Edwin’s bridges are still standing.

$1,100 | Columbia Grafonola Modern Phonograph Tin Sign

Dan Morphy Auctions

Auction House: Dan Morphy Auctions
Date Sold: May 14, 2020
Official Auction Page: Dan Morphy Auctions

The sign says it all. The Columbia Grafonola was introduced in 1907 and its big technological advantage and point of difference was that you didn’t need to get up to turn it off. The Grafonola was subsequently offered as bespoke special order, which provided consumers with options to choose styles which matched their interior decor, with some special order Grafonolas costing more than $2000 in the day – an outrageous amount for the time.

$1,147 | 1903 Adder Keyboard - early commercial mechanical calculator for addition

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: November 5, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

Think of the Adder Keyboard Calculation Machine as the numerical keypad on the end of your computer keyboard, without the computer and all it does is add numbers together. It has two rows of five keys (1-5, 6-10), a zero key, and a three window display. Anyone turning up with such a device in the office would surely be a person of the utmost consequence. This particular item was formerly in the Computer History Collection of Serge Roubé.

$1,200 | Destination Moon (1950)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: March 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

A much sought-after 27" X 41.5" movie poster that has sold as high as $4300 at auction

$1,912 | Muonionalusta Meteorite Pen And Dice With Diamonds

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

The Muonionalusta is a meteorite which impacted in northern Scandinavia about one million years ago, coming from a parent body that was one of the earliest to take shape during the formation of our solar system. The importance of the Muonionalusta and how it got its distinctive Widmanstätten Pattern are wonderfully explained at Mad Scientist.

Someone, somewhere, along the way, decided to take a piece of Muonionalusta and turn it into the barrel of a pen, which we think is one of the coolest pens around, particularly if you are one of those people absolutely obsessed with the wonders of natural science.

The pen is offered together with a dice which is also made of Muonionalusta meteorite with pips inset with diamonds, measuring 1.2 cm. If you are sufficiently into how the space crystallization patterns formed, you'll understand the significance.

$1,912 | 2001: A Space Odyssey #1 Page 14 Original Art (Marvel, 1976) by Jack Kirby and Mike Royer

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: February 24, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Original art by Jack Kirby and Mike Royer from the first issue of the comic book spin-off based on concepts from the 2001: A Space Odyssey novel by Arthur C. Clarke and subsequent film by Stanley Kubrick. From Page 14 of 2001: A Space Odyssey #1 on Bristol board with an image area of 10.5" x 14.5".

$2,000 | The flag from the World's First Nuclear Submarine - the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the first submarine to transit the North Pole

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: June 6, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Originating as the name of the fabled submarine from Jules Verne's 1870 novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the name USS Nautilus has been used four times: a 1799 12-gun schooner (1799–1812), an 1838 coastal survey schooner (1838–1859), a WWII Narwhal-class submarine (1930–1945) and the world’s first nuclear submarine (1954–1980).

As the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus was able to set and break many records during its years of service. On its shakedown cruise, it exceeded expectations for distance and time submerged. Its design and endurance rendered most of the WWII anti-submarine tactics obsolete. It continued on endurance cruises, fleet exercises, and NATO operations, visiting allied ports to demonstrate its technologies.

On August 3, 1958, it made maritime history as the first vessel ever to report, "Nautilus, 90°N, 19:15U, August 3, 1958, zero to North Pole." It had successfully, silently, and secretly sailed under the polar ice cap. The transit was an important boost to American morale as the Soviets had recently launched Sputnik, but had no nuclear submarines.

After the polar success, Nautilus continues with fleet operations and assisting in the 1962 blockade of Cuba. This is the only known, full-sized (39" X 75”), US Ensign from the Nautilus.

$2,160 | Brick Bradford #6 (1948) - early comic book of the sci-fi hero

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: September 14, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Another science fiction hero who, like Flash Gordon, began emulating the success of syndicated newspaper comic-strip space cowboy Buck Rogers, and grew his own quite considerable franchise.

$2,375 | “2001, A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clarke. Based on a Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: October 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The book 2001: A Space Odyssey written by Arthur C. Clarke, based on the screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. [1968]. First edition, signed and inscribed,

$2,380 | Two Edison Business Phonographs, c. 1910

Auction Team Breker

Price in sale currency: €2,200
Auction House: Auction Team Breker
Date Sold: May 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Auction Team Breker

From the Library of Congress: The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison's work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape, which could later be sent over the telegraph repeatedly. This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper.

Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kruesi, to build, which Kruesi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him.

$2,670 | Burmite amber fossil specimen

Summer Place Auctions

Price in sale currency: £2,000
Auction House: Summer Place Auctions
Date Sold: November 24, 2020
Official Auction Page: Summer Place Auctions

This Burmite amber fossil specimen contains snake and millipede remains, as well as other insects and organic inclusions and was found in the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar. The fossil is approximately 99 million years old. Shades of Jurassic Park!

$2,682 | Drawing of 'A four-frequency geodesic grid' signed by 'Buckminster Fuller', September 1980.

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £2,125
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The triangular elements of the dome are structurally rigid and distribute the structural stress throughout the structure, making geodesic domes able to withstand very heavy loads for their size. The first geodesic dome was designed in Germany between the wars by Walther Bauersfeld, chief engineer of the Carl Zeiss optical company, but the term geodesic was coined by Buckminster Fuller, who is the person most closely associated with the innovative structure. The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, its "omnitriangulated" surface provided an inherently stable structure, and because a sphere encloses the greatest volume for the least surface area. This is a Buckminster Fuller drawing of a four-frequency dome, signed by the great man.

$2,768 | Japanese tin-litho, battery-operated Tulip Head Toy Robot

Dan Morphy Auctions

Auction House: Morphy
Date Sold: March 12, 2020
Official Auction Page: Morphy

$2,880 | "Amazing Stories #1" published April 1926

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 2, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Amazing Stories magazine was founded 94 years ago by Hugo Gernsback, becoming the first magazine in the world devoted solely to science fiction. Gernsback’s first issue line-up included names such as Jules Verne, H.G.Wells and Edgar Alan Poe. Science fiction writers who had their first published stories in the magazine included John W. Campbell and Isaac Asimov and space opera hero Buck Rogers made his first appearance in Amazing Stories in August, 1928, when he featured in a story entitled “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” by Philip Francis Nowlan (see the August 1928 issue which sold for $4,320 later in this list).

This is the highest price ever fetched by a copy of the magazine at auction.

$2,904 | A 320-year-old Sikhote Alin Meteorite found in Siberia in 1947

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £2,375
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

This little lump of iron made quite an entrance when it descended to Earth on February 12, 1947. It and its brethren pieces from the parent Sikhote-Alin meteorite created a fireball that was so bright, it created moving shadows in broad daylight (i.e. it was brighter than the Sun). The asteroid exploded at an altitude of about 6 km over eastern Siberia, creating sonic booms that were heard 300 km away. Chimneys collapsed, windows shattered and trees were uprooted. In 1957 the Soviet Union issued a stamp for the 10th anniversary of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite shower. The stamp features a painting by P. I. Medvedev, a Soviet artist who was sitting in his window starting a sketch when the fireball appeared, so he immediately began drawing what he saw.

$2,921 | Pathé Concert Model D Phonograph, c. 1915

Auction Team Breker

Price in sale currency: €2,700
Auction House: Auction Team Breker
Date Sold: May 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Auction Team Breker

The vision and innovation of the Pathé company of 135 years ago will no doubt appeal to the entrepreneur of today. The Pathé record business began when Parisian bistro owners Charles and Émile Pathé began importing and selling Edison and Columbia phonographs and cylinder records in the 1890s. Starting off by playing the hand-cranked devices at fairs around Paris and charging a few francs for people to hear each song, he developed they developed an international media business within a handful of years.

The brothers recognized an insatiable demand in Paris for a high quality sound reproduction system for the home, and quickly designed and sold their own phonographs, followed soon after by the development of a Pathé recording label and the distribution of music on standard cylinder sizes, and of sizes that could only be played on Pathé equipment.

Auction Team Breker

Within a few short years (by 1896) the Pathé brothers had their own recording studios in Paris, London, Milan, and St. Petersburg and the Pathé brand began to influence the development of not just audio but cinema too, developing the first “newsreels” which were played prior to the feature movie at cinemas across the world. Within a decade, Pathé Frères was the world's largest film equipment and production company, one of the world’s largest producers of phonograph records, and the production of the company’s phonographs had been severely cut back – there was more money in the razor blades than making the razors. Though they began as cheap copies of American products, by the time this lot was made in 1915, the company’s remaining high end photographs were as can be seen, superb.

$2,997 | Hawking suggests wormholes may exist

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £2,375
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

First quantum mechanical analysis of wormholes. The authors solve the Wheeler-De-Witt equation with 'appropriate boundary conditions’ and find a discrete spectrum of solutions. This suggests (but does not prove) that wormholes may exist in nature. Spectrum of Wormholes by Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) and Don N. Page (b.1948). Offprint from: Physical Review D, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp.2655-2663. [Brookhaven, NY: The American Physical Society,] 15 October 1990.

$3,155 | Richard Feynman's 1953 paper on Superfluidity - one of the defining moments in modern physics

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £ 2,500
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

First edition, extremely rare offprint. The discovery of superfluidity of liquid helium is one of the defining moments in modern physics. In this momentous paper Feynman set out a quantum mechanical explanation of the superfluidity of liquid helium at temperatures below the ‘lambda-point’ of 2.18K. Whilst the phenomenon had been observed and theorized upon since 1938, its account lacked an atomistic foundation. “A significant part of Feynman’s central contribution was the demonstration that these phenomenological concepts arose directly from the fundamental quantum mechanics of interacting bosonic atoms with strong repulsive cores. One of his earliest helium papers showed in detail how the symmetric character of the many-body wave function severely restricts the allowed class of low-lying excited states’ (Selected Papers of Richard Feynman, 2000, p.313). Feynman shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 1965 with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger ‘for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles’.

$3,323 | Photograph of NASA Research Pilot Neil Armstrong after his first X-15 flight, dated November 30, 1960

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £ 2,500
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: November 20, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

Best known as the first person to walk on the Moon, Neil Alden Armstrong (1930 – 2012) was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, aviator, test pilot, and university professor and had an extraordinary life beyond his moment of fame on the moon. This images of Armstrong shows him on November 30, 1960 as a NASA Research Pilot following his first flight with a X-15 experimental rocketplane at NASA’s Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base. Armstrong was involved in several incidents that went down in Edwards folklore or were chronicled in the memoirs of colleagues. During his sixth X-15 flight on April 20, 1962, Armstrong was testing the MH-96 control system when he flew to a height of over 207,000 feet (63 km) (the highest he flew before Gemini 8). He held up the aircraft nose for too long during its descent to demonstrate the MH-96's g-limiting performance, and the X-15 ballooned back up to around 140,000 feet (43 km). He flew past the landing field at Mach 3 at over 100,000 feet (30 km) in altitude, and ended up 40 miles (64 km) south of Edwards. After sufficient descent, he turned back toward the landing area, and landed, just missing Joshua trees at the south end. It was the longest X-15 flight in both flight time and length of the ground track.

$3,470 | Stephen Hawking’s personal Simpsons figurine

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £ 2,750
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

Such was the power of television prior to the internet, that British theoretical physicist Stephen William Hawking owes probably as much of his public profile to his cameo appearances in the Simpsons TV Show as he does to his extraordinary contribution to science. Hawking first made a Simpsons appearance in the 1999 episode ‘They Saved Lisa’s Brain’ (s.10, ep.22) and he was such a popular character that he also made an appearance in the show’s merchandising, with his own figurine. This is Hawking’s personal copy.

$3,500 | Spacesuit used in "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits"

Julien's Auctions

Auction House: Julien's Auctions
Date Sold: Dec 04, 2020
Official Auction Page: Julien's Auctions

Space suits from space operas usually sell for large amounts of money, with the record set in September 2019 when Darth Vader’s mask and helmet from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back sold for $1.152 million. Other indications of the trend include the space suit from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) fetching $370,000 in 2020 and the space suit worn by Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien (1979) fetching $204,800 in 2018. Which does not explain the sale of three different space suits used in the landmark television series The Outer Limits (1963-1965) and The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) in 2020 for very small amounts of money. This particular suit sold for $3,500 while two other seemingly identical suits used in the same shows sold at Bonhams for $4,075 in June and another sold for $2,550 at Bonhams in December. Both those television shows were landmark scifi television media, and William Shatner wore a suit exactly like this in The Outer Limits prior to his casting as Captain Kirk in Star Trek.

$3,600 | Original art of “Angosia III” by Syd Dutton for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1990)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: March 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Once known as one of the foremost matte painting companies form 1985 to their unfortunate closure in 2009, the Illusion Arts studio created hundreds of paintings to be used in a wide range of movies, television shows, and even music videos. Co-founder Syd Dutton, a personal protégé of matte painting master Albert Whitlock, was a favorite artist for the much beloved Star Trek television series, his work spanning through both the TV episodes into the movies. This beautiful illustration of Angosia III's capital city, yet another stunning piece from Dutton for the artist's incredible attention to detail and sense of perspective, can be seen as a pan shot within the opening minutes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation thought-provoking Episode 3x11, "The Hunted."

$3,655 | The first American rocket to reach outer space, May 1946

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £2,750
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: November 20, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

This lot comprises two photographs from the very beginning of the American space program. As America has dominated space, it is easy to forget that America’s space program was handed to it on a platter. The first photo records the first day America first went into space, being May 10, 1946: the day a V-2 rocket captured from WW2 Germany was fired from the United States’ Army’s Proving Ground at White Sands, New Mexico, reaching an altitude of 70 miles.

As the official boundary of space is the 6-mile-high Karman line, the pictured German rocket was the first American-fired object into space. Germany had already been into space with the V-2 two years prior when an identical rocket had reached an altitude of 176 kilometers in June 1944.

The V-2 was powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine and was Germany "vengeance weapon" intended to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombing of civilian German populations.

Christie's

The image above shows the “surrender” of Wernher von Braun, the inventor of the V-2 rocket and future inventor of the Saturn V rocket at the end of WWII. Following the war von Braun was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of Operation Paperclip. The photograph shows von Braun with his arm in a cast - his arm was broken during his escape from the German facility in an attempt to avoid capture by the Russians.

$4,250 | 1890s Edison 4 Blade Bipolar Electric Fan

Donley Auctions

Auction House: Donley Auctions
Date Sold: May 17, 2020
Official Auction Page: Donley Auctions

The simple fan was one of the killer apps enabled by the advent of electricity, becoming one of the earliest mass-produced home appliances. This early Edison 4 Blade Bipolar Electric Fan dates from the 1890s, where it would have first resided in the home of a very wealthy person, or perhaps the office of a captain of industry.

$4,320 | Amazing Stories - August 1928 (Ziff-Davis) - the first appearance of Buck Rogers

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: December 2, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The space opera hero Buck Rogers made his first appearance in the Amazing Stories science fiction magazine in August, 1928, when he featured in a story entitled “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” by Philip Francis Nowlan. Buck went on to stardom, at first in a syndicated newspaper comic strip (1929) then a radio program in 1932 and finally a television series. The popularity of the Buck Rogers comic strip meant rival newspaper comic strip syndicates had to produce their own space operas, with the best-known being Flash Gordon who appeared in newspapers from 1934 onwards.

$4,560 | Weird Science-Fantasy #24 (1954)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: September 13, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

With a CGC grading of “NM/MT 9.8”, this copy is the (equal) highest grading of this particular science fiction comic. Hence the price.

$4,585 | A Fine Specimen Of Malachite

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £3,750
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

Malachite has been mined on an industrial scale for at least 4000 years, primarily as a source of copper: the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposefully alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC. Once mankind found a more viable way of producing copper, malachite returned to being the primary mineral pigment in green paints and in more recent times, simply an ornamental stone. The natural beauty of malachite has never been lost, however, with the Ancient Egyptians referring to the eternal paradise of the afterlife as a "Field of Malachite."

$5,250 | Jules Verne: "From the Earth to the Moon" signed by Ten Apollo Astronauts

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

This copy of Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” was printed in 1874 and is a heavily-illustrated third edition of the novel originally published in 1865. Most importantly, the book is signed by 10 Apollo Astronauts including eight who flew from the Earth to the Moon: Walt Cunningham (Apollo 7 LMP), Dave Scott (Apollo 9 CMP, Apollo 15 CDR), James Lovell (Apollo 8, 13 CDR), Jim McDivitt (Apollo 9), Al Worden (Apollo 15 CMP), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16 LMP), Michael Collins (Apollo XI CMP), Frank Borman (Apollo 8 CDR), Fred Haise (Apollo 13 LMP), and Richard Gordon (Apollo XII CMP).

$5,349 | A large Megaladon tooth

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £4,375
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

For millions of years, the apex predator of the oceans was a bus-sized shark known as the megalodon. A distant relative of the Great White Shark, there are enough stories about the megalodon's size and lethality to turn a megalodon tooth into a wonderful conversation-starter. It's also a great reminder that it isn't the strongest that survive, but those most adaptable.

Perhaps the best point to start in framing the megalodon is its size. That's a relatively small set of megalodon jaws below. Some of the larger ones that have gone to auction are big enough to swallow a Cadillac Escalade without it touching the sides. Scientists have calculated that a bite from a megalodon jaw could generate force of up to 40,000 pounds, which would give it the strongest bite in the entire animal kingdom.

Having something as frightening as a full-size megalodon jaw on the wall might not be exactly the type of ambience you're seeking for your home, but a megalodon tooth might be worthwhile in the den. They come up a few times a year and generally sell in or around this range.

$6,000 | Space Invaders Sealed 2600 Atari cartridge from 1978

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: September 13, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

This copy of Space Invaders is from one of the earliest production runs of the title for the Atari 2600, indicated by the blue box which was later changed to red. Despite the fact that the graphics and sprites in Space Invaders are incredibly simplistic, it's indisputable that they are some of the most recognizable symbols in video games.

$6,314 | Photograph of Laika, the first animal to orbit the Earth, taken just before launch on November 3, 1957

Christie's

Price in sale currency: GBP£4,750
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: November 20, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

On November 3, 1957, Laika became the first animal launched into Earth orbit, paving the way for human spaceflight during the upcoming years. This photograph shows her in the Sputnik II capsule just prior to launch. The experimental flight aimed to prove that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure a micro-g environment, providing scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments. Laika died within hours from overheating. The technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, so Laika’s survival was never expected.

$6,655 | Field-used M40A5 USMC 7.62mm sniper rifle by McMillian Tactical - the world's most accurate gun

Connecticut Firearms Auctions

Auction House: Connecticut Firearms Auction
Date Sold: October 18, 2020
Official Auction Page: Connecticut Firearms Auction

Built on the Remington 700 Short action Chassis by McMillian Tactical, this rifle appears to be a field-used M40A5 USMC sniper rifle and as such is a direct relation to the McMillan Tac-50 that achieved the longest confirmed sniper kill rifle of 3,540 m (3,871 yd - 2.2 miles) in Iraq in 2017. The weapon shot an Islamic State fighter on June 22, 2017 and was fired by a sniper assigned to Joint Task Force 2, Canada’s elite special forces unit. The sniper team was on top of a tall building and the shot took almost 10 seconds to reach its target.

$6,600 | Promotional poster for the Star Wars Concert (1978) (24.75" X 37")

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

When the management of the Star Wars Concert Series, which began in November of 1977, changed hands in the spring of 1978, the thought was that there should be a unifying illustration for the series. Printed in October of 1978, the poster has become one of the rarest collectibles associated with the Star Wars franchise as it was never released to the public nor used at the events. This example is in excellent unused condition.

$6,625 | Six scientific reference works from Stephen Hawking's library

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £5,250
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

The Hawking name alone will make you feel good whenever you refer to a library of such provenance.

$6,886 | Space Shuttle 4000 Series Complete Glove

RR Auction

Auction House: RR Auction
Date Sold: April 17, 2020
Official Auction Page: RR Auction

Formerly in the collection of The Spaceflight America Museum and Science Center in Prince Frederick, MD, this complete right-handed 4000 series Space Shuttle glove was made in May 1992.

$7,572 | Stephen Hawking's copy of Newton's Principia, a present from Hawking's wife Jane

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £6,000
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

Sheer magic! The most famous science book of all time, gifted to the best known modern day scientist by his wife.

$7,800 | Set of Italian movie posters for “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) (40" X 27.5").

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Believed to be a complete set of 12 Italian Promotional Posters for the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), each of the posters measures 40" X 27.5".

$7,887 | An experiment in photography by Nikola Tesla dated 29 May 1896

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £6,250
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

A typed letter signed “N. Tesla” to William T. Schley, 46 East Houston Street, New York, dated 20 May 1896.

$8,405 | NWA 11616 Moon Rock with visible fusion crust

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £6,875
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

Mankind went to a lot of trouble to obtain its first samples of moon rock, building rockets and spending vast sums in order to bring back relatively small quantities of the moon for scientific study – the Apollo program brought back around 382 kg in total.

The moon rocks brought back by NASA weren't for sale though, and the only bits of the Moon available for private sale that came from the space race sold at auction at Sotheby's in New York on November 29, 2018 for the hefty sum of US$855,000 – a few small shards that were so valuable they finished in fourth place on our annual listing of the most valuable scientific artefacts in 2018.

No sooner did mankind have its first known moon rocks, that it realized we already had a supply of moon rock on earth. All those craters on the moon were formed by collisions with other space objects, many of which were so forceful that they ejected moon rock into space, most of which eventually succumbed to the earth's gravity and arrived on Planet Earth in the form of lunar meteorites. Since being first recognized as lumps of moon in 1982, there have now been over 370 lunar meteorites found, representing more than 30 separate meteorite falls.

It may sound like the supply of moon rock is now plentiful, but the total amount of the moon that is available to the private sector could fit inside two large suitcases and is in the vicinity of 250 kg. Hence moon rock is available, but it is one of the scarcest and most valuable commodities on earth.

That's why this 26.2 gram lump measuring just 1 x 1 x 1⅓ inches (25 x 29 x 34 mm) fetched so much.

The parent North West Africa (NWA) 11616 was discovered in 2017. As described by the foremost classifier of lunar meteorites, Dr. Anthony Irving at the University of Washington, this is a polymict fragmental breccia with separate olivine gabbro and rare olivine-free basaltic (lunar mare) clasts in a fragmental matrix. Dr. Irving and lunar geochemist Dr. Randy Korotev completed their analysis of this highly exotic Moon rock in January 2018.

Several previous segments cut from the same lunar meteorite have been to auction, with a 45.7 gram sample selling for $12,500 in February 2019, and a 57.7 gram piece fetching $22,500 in February 2018.

$8,936 | Fossil of Steppe Bison Skull

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £6,875
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: October 28, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

From the late Pleistocene (circa 10,000 years ago), the skull of an adult Bison priscus with 12-inch wide horns, measuring 20 x 36 x 17in (51 x 91.5 x 43cm.)

$8,981 | James Lovell's Apollo 13 Flown Orbital Science Chart

RR Auction

Auction House: RR Auction
Date Sold: April 17, 2020
Official Auction Page: RR Auction

Authenticity plus with this space artifact. It’s the "Orbital Science Chart C" flight chart carried on the Apollo 13 mission by Apollo 13 Commander James Lovell. The chart was sold with a letter of authenticity from Lovell that reads, in part: "I hereby certify that this Orbital Science Chart C was on board the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Apollo 13’s perilous flight took off on April 11 and returned safely on April 17, 1970. This chart was from my personal collection of space artifacts and has been in my possession since the mission."

The main legend, which identifies the chart as "11 April 1970 Launch Date, Orbital science Chart C, SKB 32100082-329," explains the symbols for photography and color-coded flight paths for revolutions 40-46, and is signed in black felt tip by Commander James Lovell, with his surname marked in the border in blue felt tip.

$9,139 | Photograph of Buzz Aldrin and the American flag on the Sea of Tranquillity dated July 1969

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £6,875
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: November 20, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

$9,465 | Hawking’s most important article, predicting Hawking Radiation

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £7,500
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

A first edition, offprint issue of Stephen Hawking’s most important article, predicting black holes would release blackbody radiation, now known as Hawking Radiation. This paper shows that very low mass (primordial) black holes (with a mass less than 1015 kg) would evaporate (and explode) on a timescale shorter than the age of the Universe. If primordial black holes were formed in the early Universe these explosions could, in principle, be detected observationally. A landmark paper for a reasonable price. They won't be minting any new Stephen Hawkings any time soon.

$9,600 | Planet Comics #46 (1947)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The single highest-graded copy of issue #46.

$9,600 | Movie Poster for “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (1983) (27" X 41")

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

An autographed 27" X 41" Style B one sheet poster that has been signed by Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Ian McDiarmid, David Prowse, Denis Lawson and Warwick Davis. The poster has a Beckett seal of authenticity as well as two other holographic seals on the verso.

$9,600 | Star Wars #1 (Marvel, 1977)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: July 12, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

This is the 1500-copy-only test market 35c variant edition of the comic book adaptation of Star Wars in 1977. Rare and ... very valuable.

$10,000 | The first three UK Editions of Philip K. Dick scifi novels. One Inscribed by Dick

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: October 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Three First UK Editions of one of the greatest and most prolific of science fiction authors, Philip K. Dick

$10,200 | Movie Poster for “Forbidden Planet” (1956). (40" X 60")

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Nicholas Nayfack’s Forbidden Planet (MGM, 1956) is one of the all-time great science fiction movies, starring Robbie the Robot, Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. This version of the poster is rare and has fetched up to $29,875

$10,253 | Niels Bohr states his complementarity principle

Price in sale currency: £8,125
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic Theory by Niels Bohr (1885-1962). [Offprint from Nature, v. 121, n. 3050. Edinburgh: R & R Clark, April 14, 1928]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of the paper in which Bohr stated his ‘complementarity’ principle, a ‘major advance that radically changes our whole view of the role and meaning of science. In contrast with the nineteenth-century ideal of a description of the phenomena from which every reference to their observation would be eliminated, we have the much wider and truer prospect of an account of the phenomena in which due regard is paid to the conditions under which they can actually be observed – thereby securing the full objectivity of the description' (DSB). The paper was published essentially simultaneously in German, Danish, English and French.

$10,625 | Albert Einstein. Relativity. The Special & the General Theory. London: Methuen & Co., [1920]. First edition

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: October 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Relativity: The Special & the General Theory by Albert Einstein, London: Methuen & Co., [1920]. First edition in English.

Einstein is the most universally well-regarded scientist in history. Many people don't enter the pantheon of celebrity while they are alive, and modern media and licensing now sees many people earn more in death than they did in life. The celebrities with the highest auction multiples (Monroe, McQueen, Lennon, Taylor, Jackson) can be regularly found on Time's Top Earning Dead Celebrity List. Included on that list are Charles Schultz (Peanuts) and Theodor Giesel (Dr. Seuss), James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Lee, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash. In 2015, Albert Einstein entered Time's list at #6, just behind Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon.

Einstein’s image is managed and his endorsement is the most revered of any celebrity, such is the global regard of Einstein’s personal integrity. He's an unlikely candidate for most charismatic personal brand of all time, given he rarely spoke in public, and wasn't in film, TV or music, but that's the league he's now playing in six decades after his death. By all available measures, Albert Einstein has become one of the strongest personal brand names in history. Items touched by Einstein become near priceless.

His famous "God" letter sold for $2.89 million. His violin fetched $516,500, making it the most valuable Einstein memorabilia (other than documents), surpassing his telescope, which sold for $432,500, his pocket watch which fetched $352,054, his leather jacket ($146,000), his childhood building blocks ($83,000) and his pipe ($67,000).

There are dozens more such examples of Einstein achieving miraculous prices at auction and hence any item with the genial humanitarian in its provenance is unlikely to ever decrease in value.

$10,698 | Mosasaur Skull

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £8,750
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

This framed mosasaur skull and neck vertebrae is a tad smaller than the mosasaurs we saw during feeding time in the Jurassic World (2015), but somewhat more realistically scaled too. Mosasaur skulls can go as cheaply as $3000 for a research quality cast replica, through to $300,000 for a complete 7-meter skeleton.

$10,800 | First US Spacewalk, Ed White’s EVA over Texas, June 3-7, 1965

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £8,125
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: November 20, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

$11,462 | Table-formed specimen of Araucarioxylon arizonicum from the Triassic (circa 225 million years ago).

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £9,375
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: May 21, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

Petrified wood measures 571⁄2 x 411⁄2 x 153⁄4in. (146 x 105 x 40cm.)

$12,500 | NWA 1950 Martian Meteorite End Cut

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 10, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

One of very few known Martian meteorites, NWA 1950 was found in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in 2001, and this end cut of the shergottite nicknamed "Jules Verne" in homage to his work The Chase of the Golden Meteor is one extremely rare specimen of the renowned variety. This example weighing 16.7 grams displays a wedge shape with a trio of flat cut faces and a curved exterior surface with texture as well as color, primarily hues of red and black. While not made of Gold, this specimen of "Jules Verne" is actually exponentially more valuable than the precious metal by weight.

Overall Measurements: 1.31 x 1.19 x 0.83 inches (3.33 x 3.01 x 2.12 cm).

$12,997 | 33-inch diameter "table top" 2.5cm thick specimen of banded layers of hematite, jasper and chatoyant Tiger-eye from the Paleoproterozoic (2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago)

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £10,000
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: October 28, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

From the Paleoproterozoic (2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago), banded layers of hematite, jasper and chatoyant Tiger-eye cut and polished to form a 33-inch diameter "table top" specimen, approximately one inch (2.5 cm) thick.

$13,588 | Flown Russian Vostok 'Komandirskie' men's watch carried to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-4 for Expedition 9

RR Auction

Auction House: RR Auction
Date Sold: October 15, 2020
Official Auction Page: RR Auction

Space-flown watches always command a premium at auction, and this Russian Vostok 'Komandirskie' men's mechanical watch was carried to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-4 for Expedition 9 by Gennady Padalka to commemorate the Russian Space Forces and the upcoming first flight of Space Forces cosmonaut Yuri Shargin, who returned from the ISS together with Padalka aboard Soyuz TMA-4.

Shargin arrived on the ISS via Soyuz TMA-5, and spent almost ten days in orbit before returning home. The face of the watch depicts the wings of Russian Military Space Forces. The caseback is engraved with an image and indicates that the watch is water-resistant. The timepiece remains on its original brown leather watchband, also flown on the ISS. Includes a flown piece of paper stamped in-flight onboard the ISS. Sold accompanied by four photos of the watch onboard the International Space Station, all signed in black felt tip by Gennady Padalka.

Padalka holds the world record for most time spent in space, an impressive total of 879 days. As the commander of ISS Expedition 9, he spent over 185 days aboard the space station; with Flight Engineer Michael Fincke, he performed four spacewalks focused on maintenance and assembly. Yuri Shargin, the first Russian Space Forces cosmonaut to launch into space, joined the Expedition 9 crew at the end of their mission, spending nearly 10 days in space before returning to Earth with Padalka and Fincke on board Soyuz TMA-4.

$14,185 | Composite Atlas | A volume of maps, compiled circa 1657

Sotheby's

Price in sale currency: £10,710
Auction House: Sothebys
Date Sold: November 17, 2020
Official Auction Page: Sothebys

A composite atlas assembled in Germany, c. 1657 containing 91 engraved maps (including 73 double page) by or after Mercator, Ortelius, Hondius, Janssonius and others, including a world map by Ortelius. Three of the maps are hand-colored. The emphasis is on European locations, with a few maps of Asia.

$15,000 | "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Movie Poster (79.5" X 80").

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

One of the biggest names among the sci-fi classics, this Robert Wise picture perfectly encapsulated the growing anxiety of American citizens as the world advanced into the Atomic Age. The themes of peace and destruction balance against one another throughout the film in the alien emissary Klaatu and his towering bodyguard Gort, eventually offering the audience the hope of a better, safer world. This poster is now climbing in value, with three having sold for more than $20,000 in the last few years and a high price of $38,240.

$15,600 | "The War of the Worlds" (1953) movie poster (22" X 28")

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: March 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

One of the rarest and most sought after posters for a 50s sci-fi film, this style B half sheet showing the Martian warships is considered to be the most desirable of all the original release posters. Based on the famous H.G. Wells novel, "War of the Worlds" was first optioned by Paramount to be a silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. When the studio finally got around to filming it, the property was given to George Pal, the special effects master, who moved the setting to modern-day California. The sleekly designed warships still look spectacular and the then state-of-the art special effects still look good. This is definitely still one of the top science fiction film classics of all time.

This copy sold for $15,600 though at least three copies have sold for twice that amount, with a highest price of $39,435.

$15,779 | A New and Elegant Imperial Sheet Atlas, Laurie & Whittle, 1797

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: August 19, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

Rare atlas, including two world maps, and eight of the Americas. Includes 52 hand-colored engraved maps after Dunn, Jefferys, d'Anville, Rennel, and others, the majority double-page and folding. by Robert Laurie and James Whittle, 1797.

$16,000 | Alien predator costume from “Predator 2” (1990)

Julien's

Auction House: Julien's
Date Sold: March 12, 2020
Official Auction Page: Julien's

A full-body latex foam alien predator costume suit from the production of the film Predator 2 (Twentieth Century Fox, 1990)

$16,200 | "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) movie poster (27" X 41")

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: November 22, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

One Sheet (27" X 41") Original Roger Kastel Concept Poster. Considered to be one of the more rare posters in all of the Star Wars trilogy, this is one of only a small handful known to have survived. This poster is unique as it features the complete Kastel artwork in the original color palette for the second in George Lucas' trilogy. Perhaps done as a test printing of the International edition of the poster, this version includes images of Lando Calrissian, Boba Fett, Cloud City and more. When the studio made their final revisions to the now iconic Gone with the Wind style one sheet, those additional elements were removed from the original Kastel design as they were considered too busy. They also went with a darker color scheme of mostly blues and purples, losing the vibrant reds and oranges from Kastel's original vision.

$16,200 | Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) - The origin and first appearance of Spider-Man

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage Auctions
Date Sold: January 5, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

Though only graded 3.0 by CGC, this is one of the most important comics of all-time, being the origin and first appearance of Spider-Man. Copies of this comic in near perfect condition have sold for $1.1 million, $795,000 twice, with one such sale in 2020. When Spider-Man was first introduced back in August 1962, he caused a sensation amongst comic book fans and helped establish the success upon which the Marvel media empire was built. Here was a superhero dealing with the same issues as his readers, such as problems at school, money worries and troublesome teenage romance. Almost 60 years on he remains one of the most iconic comic book characters ever created, and copies of his debut are amongst the most highly-prized in the entire hobby.

$16,250 | "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, First edition, 1917

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: October 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

The best-known science fiction from a century ago. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1917. First edition. Edgar Rice Burroughs is best known for Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars (Barsoom series), Carson Napier of Venus (Amtor series), At the Earth's Core (1914) and the lost world–themed Caspak trilogy, beginning with The Land that Time Forgot (1918).

$16,325 | Brass 6-digit Pascaline mechanical calculator, c. 1920.

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: November 5, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

This is a replica of the Pascaline calculator that French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented to assist his father in his work as a tax collector in Rouen. Designing the machine as a 19-year-old in 1642, Pascal had no prior work of any kind upon which to base this invention and its mechanisms, and over the next three years he built more than 50 prototypes as he refined this device, the first mechanical calculator, which he eventually presented to the public in 1645.

Bonhams

Pascal had one of the most extraordinary and fertile minds in history, and would go on to influence the development of economics, probability theory, the scientific method and so much more.

This machine inspired the development of several other early mechanical calculators, in particular fascinating Gottfried Leibniz (the co-inventor of calculus) to develop his Liebniz wheels after trying unsuccessfully to further develop this machine to handle multiplication. This is not an original of the first machine that could add and subtract numbers, but a replica of a Pascaline calculator. Still, it is an authentic replica and only nine originals are known, all residing in museums across Europe.

$16,605 | "The Birds of Great Britain" by John Gould, vol. 1 (of 5), First Edition, 1873

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: August 19, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

John Gould's books appear every year in our top 100 scientific documents, sometimes with as many as seven different books in the top 100. The record for Gould at auction is the £1,252,500 (approx. US$2.3 million) paid in 2008 at a Christie's auction for a complete set of the celebrated folio bird books. This year the highest price a Gould book fetched was £51,000 paid for a complete first edition set of all five volumes of "The Birds of Great Britain" (1862-73).

$16,800 | Weird Science #14 (#3), 1950

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: March 8, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

What happens when you have a near-perfect copy of a rare and desirable comic book. CGC uses a 10-point grading scale to evaluate comics and this copy was graded “CGC NM/MT 9.8 Off-white to white pages,” which means it has been deemed “a nearly perfect collectible with negligible handling or manufacturing defects.” This copy ties with one other copy as the highest grade on record, hence the price tag.

$16,800 | Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Engine Glass Coffee Table

RM-Sotheby's

Auction House: RM-Sotheby's
Date Sold: October 24, 2020
Official Auction Page: RM-Sotheby's

The zenith of the internal combustion engine's dominance as a power plant must surely have been during the era of the radial airplane engine. The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was a four-engined heavy bomber that flew from 1935 to 1968, seeing action across Europe through to Vietnam. The aircraft was powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engines, each displacing 1,690 cubic inches (27.7 liters) and producing 750 hp (600 kW) at 7,000 ft (2,100 m).

Remarkably, only 2944 of these engines were ever built, and just nine planes (36 engines) are still flightworthy today. Always capable of functioning as a piece of industrial art, becoming the base for a coffee table emphasizes the handsome majesty just right.

$18,000 | Forbidden Worlds #1 (1951) Comic

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: March 8, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

With a CGC grading of CGC NM+ 9.6, this particular copy is the best that has ever been to auction.

$18,750 | "Traité de la lumière" (The wave or pulse theory of light) by Christiaan Huygens, 1690

Christie's

Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: June 19, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

A rare first edition of Huygens’s groundbreaking wave theory of light. Although Huygens first developed his theory in the 1670s, he did not publish until after the appearance of Newton's Principia in 1687 and a visit with Newton himself in 1689. His wave theory of light was in opposition to the corpuscular theory of light advanced by Newton, although modern physics has since reconciled both theories.

$18,929 | Feeling our way': a densely scientific letter by Albert Einstein. 1945

Christie's

Price in sale currency: £15,000
Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: July 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

An autograph one page letter in German signed by Albert Einstein (‘A.E.’) to his assistant, Ernst Gabor Straus, in the summer of 1945. Described by Christie’s as “a densely scientific letter”, it discusses their work on gravitational fields.

$18,973 | Apple Rainbow Glasses custom made for Apple-founder Steve Wozniak circa 1979

RR Auction

Auction House: RR Auction
Date Sold: December 18, 2020
Official Auction Page: RR Auction

The Lennon-McCartney of the digital age were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Their friendship created a vision of the digital future which quite literally changed the world. Jobs evangelism and sheer force of personality made him more visible than Woz, but do not underestimate that Wozniak’s sheer love of what he was doing was another unstoppable force. That love and that vision created these glasses. Steve Wozniak said of these glasses:"Around 1979, I had an optometrist in Palo Alto custom make 30 pairs of these glasses with lenses in the shape and rainbow colors of the original Apple logo. It was a project, just for fun. It's amazing to see these over forty years later, with the original box, case and cleaning cloths."

$20,000 | "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle" by Charles Darwin, 1839

Christie's

Auction House: Christie's
Date Sold: June 18, 2020
Official Auction Page: Christie's

The first separate edition of Darwin’s first published book. According to Freeman, it is the one most often read, which "stands second only to On the Origin of Species as the most often printed."

$20,000 | Chinese Gilt Bronze Armillary Sphere

Eden Fine Antiques

Auction House: Eden Fine Antiques
Date Sold: February 16, 2020
Official Auction Page: Eden Fine Antiques

Once one of the most important scientific devices in the world, an armillary sphere (aka spherical astrolabe) is a model of objects in the sky consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features, such as the ecliptic. As such, it differs from a celestial globe, which is a smooth sphere whose principal purpose is to map the constellations. The armillary sphere was invented separately in ancient Greece and ancient China. If the Earth is at the center, an armillary sphere is known as Ptolemaic. With the Sun at the center, it is known as Copernican. This Chinese gilt bronze Armillary sphere from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is highly adorned, with dragon ornamentations. The Chinese also used the armillary sphere in aiding calendrical computations and calculations.

$20,000 | Leonardo Animatronic Head from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III” (1993)

Julien's

Auction House: Julien's
Date Sold: March 12, 2020
Official Auction Page: Julien's

The animatronic head enabled Leonardo to be controlled by a virtual actor, bringing him to life on the big screen.

$20,000 | Brain-Computer Interface Headset from "Brainstorm" (1983)

Propstore

Auction House: Propstore
Date Sold: August 27, 2020
Official Auction Page: Propstore

In our lifetime, we'll have a real Brain-Computer interface, but for now, all we can do is look at this now 37 year-old movie prop and dream.

$20,075 | 1963 Gemini 133P astronaut training module

Bonhams

Auction House: Bonhams
Date Sold: November 5, 2020
Official Auction Page: Bonhams

This is exactly what an astronaut training module looked like in 1963. The cost of this finished system at auction is in significantly small in comparison to the cost to build it.

$20,400 | "A Fighting Man of Mars" Witzend magazine illustration, original art by Reed Crandall

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage Auctions
Date Sold: January 9, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage Auctions

Reed Crandall had illustrated Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Fighting Man of Mars for a new edition in 1966, but the publisher collapsed, leaving the project in limbo. This piece and its companions landed officially in a Burroughs portfolio series in Wally Wood's DIY anthology, Witzend. The art depicts Martian Princess Dejah Thoris and Earthman warrior John Carter, surrounded by Martian antagonists.

$20,692 | 282cm (111 inches) Siberian Mammoth tusk

Summer Place Auctions

Price in sale currency: £15,500
Auction House: Summer Place Auctions
Date Sold: November 24, 2020
Official Auction Page: Summer Place Auctions

This massive mammoth tusk was found in Siberia and is believed to be from a mature bull Steppe Mammoth from the Pleistocene period - this doesn’t help much in terms of dating as the Pleistocene is defined as beginning about 2.6 million years ago and running until about 11,700 years ago. Though we don’t have a tighter date than that, the tusk is 282cm (9.25 feet) long on outside of the curve and weighs 54 kg, so the Mammoth that carried it would have been one of the larger of the breed - perhaps 13 to 15 ft high at the shoulder.

$22,400 | "Grays Sports Almanac 1950-2000” from “Back to the Future II” (1989)

Julien's

Auction House: Julien's
Date Sold: March 12, 2020
Official Auction Page: Julien's

This copy of “Grays Sports Almanac - Complete Sports Statistics: 1950-2000” was produced for "Back to the Future Part II" (Universal, 1989). Other than the DeLorean time-machine , the Sports Almanac is the main plot device used in the film and is handled throughout by multiple characters, including Marty McFly, Biff Tannen, Doc Emmett Brown, and Principal Strickland. Marty buys the almanac at an antique store in the year 2015 hoping to use it to win big back in his own timeline. However, Biff from 2015 catches Marty and Doc in the time machine, follows them, and steals the almanac as well as the time machine. 2015 Biff gives the almanac to his younger self in the 1950s to make him rich in the future, causing a whole new timeline to emerge where Marty’s family is in ruin and Biff is the richest man in the country. Copies of this book, perhaps the same copy, have previously sold for $1,700 at Profiles in History in 2012 and £4,750 (US$7,287) at Propstore in 2015, so the price trend suggests it will continue to appreciate.

$22,500 | Albert Einstein Unified Field Theory letter

University Archives

Auction House: University Archives
Date Sold: March 12, 2020
Official Auction Page: University Archives

A two page autograph letter from Albert Einstein (1879-1955) in German to Ernst Gabor Straus (1922-1983), Einstein's research assistant and collaborator. Signed by the acclaimed German theoretical physicist and dated May 2, 1950

$23,750 | Judge Joseph Dredd's (Sylvester Stallone) Costume from “Judge Dredd” (1995)

Propstore

Auction House: Propstore
Date Sold: August 27, 2020
Official Auction Page: Propstore

Conceived by fashion designer Gianni Versace at Stallone's request, Judge Joseph Dredd's (Sylvester Stallone) costume from Danny Cannon's comic book adaptation film Judge Dredd is one of the most stylish superhero outfits yet produced. Dredd wore his costume when he patrolled Mega-City One as a member of the elite group of law enforcers known as Judges, who operated as the judge, jury, and executioners of potential criminals. This costume includes a mixture of components made for Stallone, his stunt double Ignacio Carreno, and other street judges.

$24,000 | French movie poster for the first release of “Frankenstein” (1932)

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: July 26, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

A rare French poster from the first release of Universal Pictures' Frankenstein. Released in France five months after it premiered in America in 1932. Frankenstein posters have sold for $358,500, $262,900 and $216,000 (Profiles in History), with several more having fetched more than US$100,000. At $24,000, this is a gold-plated investment that will never go out of style.

$24,000 | Princess Doraldina Fortune Teller Machine (1928)

Dan Morphy

Auction House: Morphy
Date Sold: June 20, 2020
Official Auction Page: Dan Morphy Auctions

Mankind has long been fascinated by automata, so as the coin-operated machinery of the last century evolved, it was only logical that automata would resurface. This 92-year-old Princess Doraldina Fortune Telling machine would have been in high demand during the roaring twenties.

$24,780 | 1916 US Navy Morse Mark V Diving Helmet

Nations Attic

Auction House: Nations Attic
Date Sold: July 19, 2020
Official Auction Page: Nations Attic

Diving helmets first came into regular usage 200 years ago, coincidentally based on a patented "Smoke Helmet” for firemen in smoke-filled areas that was lodged in 1823. This is the earliest known United States Navy Mark V helmet, the most popular of the collected diving helmets.

$25,000 | First Draft Developmental Script of the movie “King Kong”, with working title “The Beast”

Heritage Auctions

Auction House: Heritage
Date Sold: August 9, 2020
Official Auction Page: Heritage

King Kong (RKO, 1933) was the first big “monster film”. Created by writer Edgar Wallace and director Merian C. Cooper, the 1933 film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, and remains perhaps the greatest of all creature features. This lot is a first draft developmental script for the original movie, at that point entitled The Beast (RKO Pictures, 1932). King Kong movie posters reflect the standing of the film in the collector community, with the most expensive having fetched $388,375 and $336,000 respectively. By comparison, this is a bargain.

$25,000 | Nike self-lacing MAG sneakers from “Back to the Future’ (2011) signed by Michael J. Fox

Sotheby's

Auction House: Sotheby's
Date Sold: July 29, 2020
Official Auction Page: Sotheby's

The Nike MAG sneakers that premiered in the 1989 sequel, Back to the Future II, instantly became one of the most coveted – but unavailable – pair of shoes in history. In 2011, Nike finally released 1,500 pairs to the public to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which marked one of Nike’s most popular releases.

In the film, Marty time travels to the year 2015, and famously turns on his Nike MAGs featuring ‘power laces’, that self-tie. That moment, and later scenes in the movie, became iconic in the history of footwear inspiring multiple further releases by Nike, including the Nike MAG (2016), and the Nike Adapt Mag (2019), amongst others.