In the past weekend, there have been a number of novel stories in the global auction circle, such as "the most expensive Napoleonic hat in history" and "whisky that has been left for nearly 100 years has been sold for a record high price".
At the same time, there is a baseball star card in the auction that is hitting an all-time record of $12.6 million.
Napoleon's two-horned hatOn Sunday local time, the Drouot auction house in Fontainebleau, France, sold a black two-cornered hat belonging to former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
Although the market did not expect much before the auction, with an estimate of between 600,000 and 800,000 euros, the hat sold for a total of 1.93 million euros, surpassing the previous record for the "Napoleonic hat" collection, which sold for 1.88 million euros at Drouot in 2014.
It is worth mentioning that the final price of this hat at the auction stage was 1.5 million euros, and the buyer also had to pay a 28.8% commission, so the cost of buying this hat was more than 1.9 million euros.
As a symbol of Napoleon's style of dress, he always wore a two-cornered hat horizontally, so that he could avoid being obstructed by the horns of the hat when fighting. It is said that Napoleon wore nearly 120 two-cornered hats in his lifetime, and about 20 of them are still alive. According to Pierre Osenat, the auctioneer of Drouot, most of the hats worn by Napoleon are currently in museums, and there are only about five in private collections/circulation.
(World Famous Painting: Napoleon Crossing the St. Bernard Pass in the Alps)
The hat, which was auctioned last Sunday, was originally sourced by Pierre Baillon, a quartermaster who had been with Napoleon for a long time, and was bought by Jean-Louis Novasier, a French industrialist and a Napoleon fan, after changing hands several times. Novasier passed away in 2022.
Centennial whiskySotheby's London also auctioned off a bottle of "whisky made nearly 100 years ago" on Saturday, with a total transaction consideration of a staggering £2.1 million. It is reported that this price is also the most expensive wine or distilled spirits ever sold by an auction house in the world.
The history was made by Macallan Adami 1926, known as the "Holy Grail of Whisky". It is reported that after the wine was made in 1926, it was placed in barrels for half a century, and finally 40 wines were produced in 1986, of which 12 wines were designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami himself, and one of them was auctioned last weekend.
It is worth mentioning that the previous auction record for the same track was also set by another bottle of Macallan 1926, which sold for £1.5 million that year.
For those who want to know what a £2 million wine tastes like, The Macallan Distillery's Head Distiller, Kirsteen Campbell, describes: "[It tastes] first with rich dark fruit, black cherry compote and sticky dates, then rich and sweet antique oak, dark chocolate, molasses, ginger... These flavors have been going on for a long time. ”
A card that hits history?At the same time, the U.S. auction community is also paying close attention to a card from 1914 - the rookie player card of the "God of Baseball" Babe Ruth when he was 19 years old, and it is said that there are only 10 left in the world now. Robert Edward's auction house in the United States has already launched the auction on November 17 and is expected to last until December 3.
According to the bidding records, the card started at $2.5 million and has now risen to $5.25 million. Given the rarity and state of the card's preservation, it is widely expected that the card will eventually trade for more than $10 million.
As the target of this auction, New York Yankees star Mitch Manto's 1952 card holds an industry record of $12.6 million.
Brian Dwyer, chairman of the auction house, confidently states that "a record break is close at hand". In addition to the two cards mentioned above, the track also features a "T206" Honaas Wagner (a set of tobacco cards issued by British American Tobacco from 1909 to 1911), which a group of grandmothers sold for $262,000 in 2011 and another for $7.25 million last year.
As for "how to see a piece of paper fetching tens of millions of dollars", Dwyer said he believes there is a group of high-net-worth individuals who recognize these "extremely rare and high-quality assets" and believe that such assets will continue to perform well and store value for them.
(Finance Associated Press)