Sotheby's

The Blastech DL-44 from "Star Wars" has been the most valuable movie weapon sold at auction three times. This latest record-setter is the only surviving original from the original 1977 movie.

Collectibles

Han Solo's DL-44 Blaster from "Star Wars" smashes auction records

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.

The 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Competizione won its way into the final of the Peninsula Classic Best of the Best Award by taking out the Trofeo BMW Group (awarded by the jury) for “best of show” at the 2021 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.

Automotive

Pictorial: World's "Best of the Best" concours car, plus 8 finalists

A 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Competizione yesterday became the winner of 2021 Annual Peninsula Classics ‘Best of the Best’ Award, the most prestigious concours honor in the world. Here's a pictorial of the winning car, and the other 7 finalists

Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. wearing the jacket that sold yesterday for $2.77 million. Aldrin is pictured inside the Apollo 11 Lunar Module during the lunar landing mission. The picture was taken by Neil Armstrong, just prior to the landing on 20 July 1969.

Collectibles

Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 jacket smashes auction records

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.

A 77-million-year-old Gorgosaurus skeleton is going under the hammer this month

Science

Huge carnivorous dinosaur skeleton goes up for auction in New York

It’s hard to find a cooler collectible than the skeleton of a long-dead predator. The latest to hit the auction block is a Gorgosaurus, a distant relative of T-rex, which will be offered for sale by Sotheby’s New York in its Natural History sale.

When the hammer came down on 11 June 2022 in Vienna, Leitz Photographica had broken its own world auction record for the seventh consecutive time. Apart from a charity auction (which we don't count), only 12 cameras have ever sold for more than a million dollars, all of them at Leitz Photographica.

Photography

$15 million Leica camera was owned by the man who democratized photography

Vienna’s Leitz Photographica Auctions celebrated its 20th year in business this week when it sold the camera of the man who invented 35-mm photography for €14,400,000, smashing the previous world record of €2,400,000.

Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 Flown LM Lunar Surface Checklist Page (1969) was sold for $143,750 at RR Auction on 21 October 2021

Collectibles

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

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

Our annual highlights of the auction year reached a crescendo in this post-2021 coverage - the most explosive growth, the most ridiculous lots, and dozens of examples of the most expensive items in history ... not to mention the most bizarre lots we've yet seen. The most intriguing of them all was the sale by tender of (most of) the cars from the 2015 movie, “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

Collectibles

Top 100 highlights of the 2021 auction year

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.

This Apollo 11 Vintage NASA "Red Number" Color 10" x 8" print sold for $125,000 at Heritage Auctions on 24 September 2021

Collectibles

Science and sci-fi memorabilia booming at auction

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.

The Apollo Guidance Computer is extremely rare, was very expensive to produce, and an example of state-of-the-art design and fabrication of the period - perhaps even more significantly, it is the common ancestor of every computer.

Collectibles

Space and sci-fi memorabilia breaking records at auction

Last week was a big week in space exploration, with the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and some significant sales of space memorabilia, including US$746,000 for an Apollo Guidance Computer (the brain behind the Lunar landing).

Just 276 copies of the first edition of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) were known prior to this auction

Collectibles

First edition of Copernicus’ "De revolutionibus" sells at auction

A previously unknown first edition copy of Nicolas Copernicus’ landmark scientific text, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), has sold at auction for £277,200 ($391,767).

Michael Jordan has sold the two most valuable pairs of sneakers (indeed, ANY footwear) in history in the last three months and seems likely to own the top four prices ever inside the next two weeks.

Collectibles

Another set of Air Jordan sneakers sell for $475k, record could hit $850k

Michael Jordan was unquestionably a once in a lifetime athlete. His outrageous gravity-defying achievements on the basketball court helped him rewrite the rules of athletic merchandise and now he is creating his own new reality on the auction block.

Only three bottle were known of the 1762 Gautier Cognac. The bottle pictured was auctioned by Bonhams in New York on April 30, 2014, selling to Polish company Wealth Solutions for US$59,500 and has subsequently been opened and its contents dispersed into a range of high-priced merchandise - watches, coins and fountain pens. Another of the bottles is now in the Gautier Museum and can be expected to remain there for the foreseeable future. The third and largest bottle will sell at auction on May 28, 2020. It is the only publicly available bottle of the world's oldest Cognac, and competition to own it is expected to be ferocious.

Collectibles

The bizarre tale of the world’s oldest cognac

The only remaining bottle of the world’s oldest cognac goes to auction next week, and will almost certainly set a new record. The 258-year-old Gautier cognac was distilled during the reign of Louis XV, almost three decades before the French Revolution.