shakespeare

$70 Million "Cultural Olympiad" Planned for London 2012

In the buildup to London's hosting duties of the 2012 Olympics, the city's planners have created a "Cultural Olympiad" to generate buzz, highbrow British style. Twelve new public works of art are slated to open, the Royal Shakespeare Co. will produce a Shakespearean festival, a film competition will inspire the next wave of British filmmakers and Windsor Castle will be illuminated by a dazzling light show. The city plans to invest around $70 million in the project.

Lord Sebastian Coe, the chair of London's organizing committee for the 2012 Games, will even participate in Martin Creed's conceptual piece of moving sculpture currently on exhibit at the Tate, a piece featuring a runner sprinting across the museum galleries every 30 seconds, followed by an equivalent pause. The museum is calling it the "purest expression of human vitality."

The hope, organizers say, is to connect sports and the arts and provide a major injection of culture that will inspire young artists the way Michael Phelps makes you want to don a Speedo.

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Tags: cultural olympiad, CulturalOlympiad, london, lord coe, LordCoe, martin creed, MartinCreed, olympic games, OlympicGames, shakespeare, tate britain, TateBritain, windsor castle, WindsorCastle

The World of Rare Books: The Gutenberg Bible, First and Most Valuable

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

There are countless rare books in the world, but by most expert's standards the rarest of them all is the Gutenberg Bible. It was the first book ever printed back in 1456, and although several hundred copies were originally printed finding a complete first edition would net you $25-$35 million. In today's market single pages alone go for $25,000 each, and several years ago just 1 volume (it's a 2 volume set) sold for $5.5 million.

Besides the Gutenberg Bible other rare books include the first edition of Shakespeare's collected works from 1623 (worth $6 million), a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts (potentially worth as much as $100 million), and of course any first edition copy of the Declaration of Independence (worth $8 million). Edgar Allen Poe's work also makes in onto the "rarest books" list with his first published poem ("Tamerlane") being rare and difficult to find due to a byline of simply "By A Bostonian." It's worth as much as $200,000 to the right buyer.

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Tags: Bible, book, books, Declaration of Independence, DeclarationOfIndependence, Edgar Allen Poe, EdgarAllenPoe, first edition, FirstEdition, Gutenberg, rare, rarest, Shakespeare, the rare, TheRare

The World of Rare Signatures and Autographs: William Shakespeare

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Think "autograph" and images of crowds of screaming fans mobbing celebrities comes to mind, or maybe a more organized event with people lining up in droves and the celebrity sitting behind a table. Either way the end result is the same: a lot of signatures leaving with a lot of satisfied fans. And that's great for all those people who now have a souvenir to cherish, but not so much for collectors. In order for a signature to be worth a lot in terms of money it has to be fairly rare.

He may have done a lot of writing, but with only 6 of them in existence William Shakespeare's signature is one of the rarest of all and is valued somewhere around $3 million dollars. And as far as present-day celebrities go it's a harder call to make, but this past year Will Ferrell topped the list of worst celebrity signers (which would, in theory, make his John Hancock just a little more rare).

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Tags: autograph, autographs, celebrity, ferrell, rare, rarest, shakespeare, signature, signatures, will ferrell, WillFerrell, william shakespeare, WilliamShakespeare

William Shakespeare's Signature Worth $3 Million

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Celebrity Shopping

Celebrities spend a lot of time signing autographs, but besides personal value the ones that really end up being worth lots of cold hard cash are the rarest ones. In today's day and age it's hard to get through a single day sometimes without signing for a credit card purchase or something else, but hundreds of years ago things were different. Even for somebody who spent most of his time with a quill in his hand.

For all the writing William Shakespeare did he apparently didn't sign his name very often. Today there are only six of the playwright's known authenticated signatures in existence, which helps make his John Hancock one of the most valuable in the world. One can be found on a conveyance for a house in London, one on a legal deposition, one on his mortgage documents, and three in his will. And any one of those is worth $3 million, seriously.

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Tags: autograph, autographed, famous, john hancock, JohnHancock, most expensive, MostExpensive, name, play, plays, playwright, rare, shakespeare, sign, signature, signed, william shakespeare, WilliamShakespeare, write, writer, writing

Shakespeare Limited Edition Pen

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Writing Instruments

The Shakespeare pen is the latest limited edition from Conway Stewart. The pen combines airbrushing and hand painting to show a scene from Romeo and Juliet on the barrel and the cap features the likeness of Shakespeare as shown in the engraving of him in the First Folio of Shakespeare works. The pen has a solid 18-carat gold nib available in a choice of eight grades, from Extra Fine to Extra Broad, Italic Fine, Italic Medium and Italic Broad and it uses a cartridge converter filling mechanism. There are 25 numbered pieces available in fountain pen or roller ball which sell for $2,450 each. Pretty, but the Romeo and Juliet look a bit old for teenage lovers in this version.

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Tags: conway stewart, ConwayStewart, fountain pen, shakespeare

Rare Shakespeare Work Sells for $5.2M

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

At a Sotheby's auction in London yesterday, a very rare First Folio of Shakespeare's works sold for £2.8 million (approx $5.2 million US). The book, which contains 36 complete plays including Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night, was printed in 1623 and was in mint condition. Some say that these works were saved by their inclusion in the volume and would otherwise have been lost. Today, there are less than 250 copies of the First Folio and the majority are incomplete or damaged. The book was purchased by Simon Finch Rare Books, a London-based book dealer, so it is likely that it will be on the market again in the future.

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Tags: auction, book, first folio, london, rare book, shakespeare, sotheby's

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