Auction

One of the largest, most complete and most famous Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons is about to go under the hammer. The dinosaur, nicknamed “Stan,” has been on display in the Black Hills Institute for decades, but will now be auctioned off by Christie’s.

In the midst of a global pandemic the success of Gooding & Company’s “Passion of a Lifetime” auction on the weekend seems like a miracle. Eight cars topped US$1 million and $45,231,210.76 was realized in just 90 minutes … at just over $500,000 a minute.

It has been a remarkable week in the collectible motorcycle industry, with many important motorcycles selling at Bonhams' Bicester Heritage Auction, with two others being sold in Monterey. Here's our summary of the major sales and non-sales.

So far this year, there hasn't been a car sold for eight figures, but one auction to be held at the Concours of Elegance on September 5, 2020 could see three cars all surpass that mark inside two hours.

The immediate post-WW2 micro car market is flushed with character, quirkiness and great value for the collector, but there is a “Holy Grail” in every market and the FMR (Messerschmitt) TG500 Tiger stands above this marketplace.

Mecum Auctions finished the first big bricks-and-mortar car auction since the pandemic began in Indianapolis this week, ushering in a new era for the collector car industry and smashing the world record price for a Mustang for the second time this year.

Significant space and science fiction memorabilia continues to sell well at auction, with the Space Suit used in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" selling for $370,000 and Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 Control Joystick selling for $370,000 at Julien’s Auctions.

Julien's Auctions is offering a trio of historic Apollo 11 artifacts as part of its Legends & Explorers auction. Three of the hand controllers used to steer the Columbia spacecraft are expected to fetch between US$80,000 and $200,000 each.

The value of movie memorabilia is invariably linked to the importance of the film it comes from. This makes the upcoming auction of the space suit used in Kubrick's masterpiece potentially one of the science fiction auctions of the year.

The importance of the secondary motorcycle market was acknowledged this week when Kawasaki announced it has begun manufacturing reproduction cylinder heads for its milestone Z1 900cc motorcycle from the 1970s.

If there are two forms of transportation that millionaires like, those would be Learjets and limos – the one-off "Learmousine" is a mix of both. Should your pockets be as deep as it is long, the bizarre vehicle could soon be yours.

Thought lost for many years, the engine of this Taglioni masterpiece was rediscovered in Latvia and the frame in Croatia. Now, as the only Ducati 125/4 ever to exist, it's set to become one of the most valuable motorcycles ever sold at auction.