Heritage Auctions

There has always been a marketplace for the personal cards of important people, but the humble ceremonial personal card (aka business card, visiting card, calling card, Carte de Visite) has never received much attention at auction, and has often been used as part of a significant lot to highlight provenance and authenticity.

The Q1 desktop microcomputer, the world's first microcomputer that was uncovered in storage boxes by accident by cleaners at Kingston University in London, is going on the auction block at Heritage Auctions, along with a later version and a printer.

Two Superman comics are now locked in battle for comic book price supremacy, while also pushing all prices into the art domain. A birds-eye view of the data offers some fascinating insights into superhero hierarchy in a rapidly heating marketplace.

Records galore fell at Heritage Auctions' Greg Jein Collection sale of science fiction memorabilia last weekend, with the auction grossing US$13.6 million to become the second-highest grossing Hollywood auction in history.

Greg Jein worked on many of the great sci-fi movie/TV shows as well as assembling a massive collection of movie props from every iteration of "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", plus "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Battlestar Gallactica", "Lost in Space", and many more.

This poster was created to promote the Lumière brothers' first screenings at the Grand Café in Paris in 1896. It is one of a handful (perhaps less) that survive and it represents the beginning of one of the most important cultural, artistic and social phenomena in history.

The original and sole remaining Blastech DL-44 Blaster used by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in the first 1977 Star Wars movie (Star Wars: A New Hope) has sold for a record US$1,057,500 at Rock Island Auctions.

At the "Buzz Aldrin: American Icon" auction yesterday, Sotheby’s sold the jacket worn to the moon by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin yesterday for $2,772,500, smashing all sorts of auction records in the process.

On July 16, an extremely rare and historically important thermometer made by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, inventor of the mercury thermometer and the temperature scale that bears his name, sold for just US$93,750.

This is the second part of our overview of the 2021 auction year – a year where investors channeled more of their wealth into “investments of passion” than ever before. It covers the 150 science, sci-fi and technology artifacts that sold for more than $100,000

The 2021 auction market was quite extraordinary, with unprecedented levels of participation and sales. From cars to colt revolvers to multi-million-dollar NFTs, this sweeping look at the highlights is full of fascinating tales and astonishing prices.

It would be reasonable to expect a slow year at auction for science, technology and science-fiction, but 2021 is on track for a record, with a slew of knowledge-related objects of note hitting the auction block in recent weeks.