Guernsey's Auction Fails To Sell Liberty's Nose, Diana's Jewels

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Sep 25th 2010 at 6:01PM

News from last night's auction at Guernsey's in New York City is not good. According to reports, a lot of the memorabilia did not sell. The auction was a bit of a mixed bag boasting everything from Superman's cape to a cast of the Statue of Liberty's nose and may have attracted more of the curious than the ready-to-bid. The nose was expected to bring in between $150,000 and $200,000. A set of jewels worn by Princess Diana were listed with an estimate of $1.5 to $2.5 million but did not reach their reserve price. The AFP quotes Arlan Ettinger, president of the auction house as saying that the reserve prices for some items were very high.

What did sell was a statue used in the movie "The Maltese Falcon." It went for $305,000 dollars to billionaire Stewart Rahr who was at the auction with Leonardo DiCaprio. Two prop tablets from the movie "The Ten Commandments" carried by actor Charlton Heston during his portrayal of Moses went for $18,000.

Tags: guernseys, princess diana, superman

Filed under: Auctions

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

lpscoon Sep 29th 2010 10:21PM

To anyone who may be interested:

I attended the auction, and in fact had an object of great value in
the auction. Mr. Ettinger's remark regarding high reserves on the
objects had nothing to do with the lack of sales. His lack of
promotion, and also his extreme need to hold on to every cent,
prevented the auction from being successful. The room where it was
held was very small, and at that only about one third of the chairs
were filled. It was a pitiful evening. If not for billionaire
Stewart Rahr, the auction would have been a total bust!!! 75 percent
of the items were not sold, and did not even receive a single bid. It
had nothing to do with the reserves. Sadly, many people trusted this
man. In the end it was not Arlan who lost out, but the people who
trusted him with their objects, for in the end he made the people pay
him 9 percent of whatever reserve was placed on their item before he
would release it to them. Thankfully we did not agree to this, but
most we spoke to had, including a man with cancer who was there to
sell his Remington so that he could continue on with
treatments.......he left with his item, and a considerable amount less
cash. Oh so sad.

INTERN Sep 30th 2010 10:55PM

I'm not surprised to read the results from this auction. I had the unfortunate experience as an "intern" with this company. I was promised the world, including a full-time position at the end of the auction. If it wasn't for myself and other interns, the auction wouldn't have happened. I have never before worked with such unprofessionals who knew absolutely nothing about what they were selling. Of course we were never offered jobs. As for the payment, Arlan constantly gave me the run around and complained that the company was broke. I had to threaten to call the BBB for my lousy $7 a day "stipend."