LOS ANGELES (AP) – Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber has been on Star Wars fans’ Christmas lists for more than 30 years.
On Thursday, one fan spent $240,000 to get the real thing: the prop that Mark Hamill used in the first two movies in the original Star Wars trilogy.
The light saber highlighted several Hollywood memorabilia sold at an auction in Los Angeles by Profiles in History. The auction house said it sold about $3.5 million in memorabilia.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia valued at more than $20 million has been donated to the state of Indiana and will be housed in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Gov. Mitch Daniels said Friday.
The collection including photographs, signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and thousands of other documents is considered the world’s largest private collection of memorabilia from Abraham Lincoln’s personal and presidential life.
The items formerly housed at the defunct Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Ind go to the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis and the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne. They are being donated by the Lincoln Financial Foundation, which relocated from Fort Wayne to Philadelphia in 1999.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The long-running West Palm Beach Antiques & Collectibles Show has been sold by dmg world media, according to an announcement issued on Friday, Dec. 12 by dmg Senior Vice President Richard Lewis. The show’s new owners are veteran show promoters Kay and Bill Puchstein, and Yvonne and Jim Tucker.
The name of the show will be changed to the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival. Both the ownership and name change will take effect with the next edition of the show, which is scheduled for Jan. 2-4.
LiveAuctioneers’ public relations company recently arranged for the TV Guide Channel’s Hollywood 411 show to visit Profiles in History, a gallery in Calabasas, Calif., that specializes in blue-chip entertainment memorabilia. As tape rolled, Profiles in History’s owner, Joe Maddalena, provided a personal preview of several unique and desirable items offered in their Dec. 11 auction.
Maddalena chose several important items for special attention on camera: Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones fedora, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine costume from the X-Men movie, Heath Ledger’s Joker card from Batman: The Dark Knight, and Marlon Brando’s Jor-El costume worn in the 1978 film Superman.
The jewel in the auction’s crown, and the top-estimated lot, was the lightsaber wielded by Mark Hamill in the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back. Maddalena stressed its importance as an icon in sci-fi cinema history.
Carnavalet Museum in Paris accused of retaining Holocaust looted assets In recent years museums all over the world have come under increasing pressure to conduct and publish exhaustive research into the provenance of any material in their collections that might qualify as Holocaust-related assets – objects looted by the Nazis. The vexed issue of restitution generally tends to focus on looted paintings, but one of the most high-profile of current cases concerns an important suite of 18th-century French furniture in the collection of the Carnavalet Museum in Paris.
NEW HOPE, Pa. – Noel Barrett wrapped up a year of estimate-topping auction results with $2.3 million in combined sales from his spring and autumn auction events. Several distinguished private collections had contributed to the $1.54 million gross in Barrett’s April 11-13 Antique Toy & Americana sale, in which a superb carved-wood cigar store Indian earned $77,000 (all prices inclusive of 10 percent buyer’s premium). The company’s Nov. 15-16 auction titled Toys & Other Things included approximately 600 premium lots from the late Stan and Priscilla Cypher, and grossed $770,000 – a full $200,000 more than the total high estimate.
In past centuries, medicine was very different than it is today. There was little knowledge about the causes of illness until Louis Pasteur reported in 1864 that germs cause disease. Even the idea of washing your hands to avoid germs was a 20th-century idea.
Most medicines were herbs and potions that had been found to help, although no one knew why. Sometimes parts of snakes, insects, roots, crushed minerals and other strange materials were used. Alcohol and drugs like cocaine and marijuana were effective painkillers. An apothecary shop sold all sorts of dried mixtures, cures and medicines, usually made from alcohol and herbs. The shops kept some of the dry medicines in large jars decorated with the appropriate name and a fancy border. Other medicines were kept in glass jars, drawers or small-folded paper packets. Today’s medicines in sterile containers and pill form have helped raise the average life expectancy from about 37 in the 1800s to about 66 today. Medical tools, medicine and medicine containers all are collected. Old medical tools bring high prices.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) – To this day, Mark Nicotra carries forward a family tradition, inspecting the bottoms of plates for the “Syracuse China” stamp when he’s out to eat at a restaurant.
“It was a game we played when we traveled. I think everyone in Syracuse could identify with them … it’s given us a great sense of pride,” said Nicotra, the town of Salina supervisor.
After 137 years in business, a slumping economy is forcing the shutdown of Syracuse China’s suburban factory, one of the last in the United States making dinnerware products.
MT. PLEASANT, S.C. – Due to difficulties associated with eBay Live’s applet problem of last weekend, the principals of Estate Road Show Auctions have rescheduled their auction of fine and costume jewelry from the Estate of Louise Mondani Graham. The sale originally scheduled for Dec. 7, will now take place on Sunday, Dec. 14.
“Many enthusiastic bidders are looking forward to having a second chance at this incredible collection. It’s going to be an exciting event,” said Estate Road Show’s IT Director, Michael Whelchel.
NEW YORK (AP) – An original handwritten outline for Martin Luther King Jr.’s first speech condemning the Vietnam War is going on the auction block tomorrow, Dec. 11.
Sotheby’s will offer the previously unknown document, along with two others: the scribbled notes for a speech King planned to deliver in Memphis, Tenn., three days after he was assassinated; and a letter of condolence from President Lyndon B. Johnson to King’s widow, Coretta Scott King.