LOS ANGELES – Julien’s Auctions will conduct the Cold War Relics auction featuring the KGB Espionage Museum Collection, the world’s first and most comprehensive auction event offering some of the rarest and most important artifacts from the U.S., Soviet Union and Cuba during the Cold War era ever to be assembled and offered at auction. The history memorabilia event of the season will take place on Saturday, Feb. 13, at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills. Bid absentee or live online through LiveAuctioneers.

At the centerpiece of this special event is the entire collection from the KGB Espionage Museum in New York City. The auction will feature the world’s largest collection of KGB-specific spy equipment and authentic KGB artifacts from the Cold War. Over 400 lots will be on offer such as clandestine operative cameras, counter-intelligence detectors, morse code machines, airplane radars, voice recorders and official government documents. Special highlights include a gun designed to look like a tube of lipstick (estimate: $800-$1,200), a secret hotel-room listening device or “bug” from 1964 (estimate: $300-$500), a rare Soviet version of the Enigma code cipher machine known as the Fialka (estimate: $8,000-$12,000), a replica of the deadly syringe umbrella believed to have been used to carry out the assassination of Bulgarian author Georgie Markov (estimate: $2,000-$3,000), a vintage 1,000-pound carved stone sculpture of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin (estimate: $5,000-$7,000) that stood in the headquarters of the KGB in Kaliningrad, a purse with a hidden camera and shutter apparatus (estimate: $2,500-$3,500), a machine used by border guards to detect people hiding in vehicles (estimate: $800-$1,200), a German WWII phone tap device (estimate: $1,500-$2,500), an original steel door from a former KGB prison hospital (estimate: $500-$700), a unique portable wire recording machine (estimate: $500-700) and a vintage railroad “Infected Area” warning sign (estimate: $100-$150).

This collection of exclusive items will be offered for the first time to the public at auction and was procured by world-renowned historian, collector and museum curator, Julius Urbaitis, who worked as the consultant for the 2019 Emmy and Golden Globe award winning HBO series, Chernobyl.

The Cold War was also waged in the final frontier between the United States and the Soviet Union as the two superpowers jockeyed relentlessly to surpass one another with their space exploration and launches that wielded their power, intelligence and military might to the world. Numerous relics of the U.S. and Soviet space race will be spotlighted including the original NASA designed and constructed spacesuit transporter from the Mobile Biological Isolation System (MBIS) created for David Vetter in 1977 and was the inspiration for the Emmy nominated film The Boy in The Plastic Bubble starring John Travolta (estimate: $2,000-$3,000), approximately 1,600 feet of 16mm film footage of astronauts Paul Weitz and Bruce McCandless wearing space suits in a zero gravity simulator for the Apollo Applications Program (estimate: $100-$150), a camera designed for use on the Moon Rover vehicle (estimate: $200-$300), a space flown NASA T-shirt and shorts worn by astronaut Donn Eisele on Apollo VII (estimate: $500-$700) and a Soviet space program coffee tube signed by Vostok 3 cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev (estimate: $100-$150).

The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was a seismic moment in Cold War history as the threat of war loomed during the tense 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the installation of nuclear armed Soviet missiles on Cuba. Hundreds of pieces, some never before seen at auction, that tell the history of the island nation located 90 miles from the U.S., its struggles and uprising against their government in 1959, led by the Cuban Revolution’s leaders Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara, will be presented. Highlights include Guevara’s high school report card (estimate: $1,000-$1,500), and a signed 1958 letter from Fidel Castro discussing plans to infiltrate the capital city of Havana (estimate: $1,000-$1,500).

A relic of the Spanish-American War of 1898 is a presentation sword given to African American military officer Capt. William Roderick Staff, who fought in Cuba, most notably in the Battle of San Juan Hill, in Company C of the 24th Infantry, a “Colored” unit composed primarily of African-American citizens (one of the original “Buffalo Soldier” regiments), and fought in Southeast Asia during the Philippine Insurrection (estimate: $10,000-$15,000).

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