OT: Other auction experiences - NOT card/sports related

[tschock]

Ted Z's T206 auction experience got me thinking. I know many of us have other interests outside of small pieces of cardboard, so I thought it might be great to hear some stories of other auctions or sales that you may have attended that that really left an impact. It doesn't have to be something you won, or even something you bid on, but something that really excited you or left you going "Wow!"

In my case, I regularly check in with a local auction house that sells all kinds of items. I'll check online to see what's coming up and look through the pics, and usually stop by the day before to look at the items in person. About 2 months ago something really caught my eye. Now John does get some really nice items, but when I saw this one listed, I literally said out loud "Holy F-ing Sh*t!".

While it wasn't a copy of the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence, seeing an original copy of the 2 volumes of "The Federalist" (with their original publisher boards) being offered up at an auction not more than 20 minutes from where I live was something I just had to see in person. So I stopped by the night before the auction and was able to hold these in my hands and actually leaf through them. If you are into history or historical documents, you can understand why I was almost shaking while holding these.

As it turned out, they weren't both volumes but rather two copies of Volume 1. One was complete and in decent shape but the other was missing the first 6 pages. Still... And it was probably just as well, because driving over my mind was racing trying to figure out if, and then how, I might come up with the money to bid on them (even though this kind of stuff is way out of my league). At least since it was 2 copies of volume 1, I could "justify" not bidding on them now. Especially since they ended up selling for $40,700 ($37K + 10%).