Slashdot Mirror

And the highest priced lot is ... A collection of Alan Turing's offprints

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5370960&sid=c5bf7f25-71cf-442e-9dae-3518ad8c659f

I was flicking through stuff at random when I saw GALILEI, Galileo. Sidereus nuncius. Frankfurt: Poltheanus, 1610. which has the description:

"Pirated edition of Galileo's work containing "some of the most important discoveries in scientific literature" (PMM), published the same year as the first edition. This the the first publication of any of Galileo's works outside of Italy. ..."

The online auction catalog is beautiful.

Christie's is conducting another interesting auction a week later: The Year of the Rabbit: The Playboy Collection. This online auction catalog is NSFW.

The online auction catalog is beautiful.

Christie's is conducting another interesting auction a week later: The Year of the Rabbit: The Playboy Collection. This online auction catalog is NSFW.

Sounds more like a game of telegraph than a clue to a scam.

Christie's isn't going to get itself involved in selling knockoffs using verbage that might allow people to mistake it for the genuine goods.

Rather than a fake, it's probably got papers saying it came from ILM's storage unit, but that ILM doesn't remember which version of the costume this was or which movie it was in.

In any case, the auction catalog will be more distinct about it. And a quick scan shows they get very detailed about what parts of the costume are original and which are copies based on the original parts, plus letters from principals, yadda yadda The catalog also includes some other things of almost the same level of importance, like James Bond props and animation cels from Danger Mouse.

I may have to sell my right nut, too...

Only whisky attracts idiots to put silly values on bottles of the stuff they are never going to drink.

Because no-one ever heard of people doing that with antique wines, right? It's not like Christie's or Sotheby's thinks that selling wine at silly values is much of a market ...

How would you put a price on the Sistine Chapel

There are companies specialized in those pricing matters. The Sistine Chapel would be an absolutely awesome meeting room for an awesomely rich organization with cash to spare that already has everything it could reasonably need.

Oh, wait... Doh!

http://www.christies.com/Lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4205385

QED

Christie's are being naive, disingenuous or coy - they should know that those books, papers and documents will sell for about 10 times the quoted amounts. Take this scientific paper ("Waves and Motion.") by De Broglie Do you really think it will go for "$1,000 - $1,500"?

If you (and by "you" I don't mean the OP speficically, but anyone) think so, I own a huge copper-plated statue in New York I am willing to sell you for cheap.

Seriously though, I guess these ridiculously low "estimates" serve only one purpose: to create the buzz.

i knew i should have included a link to christie's site for the auction:

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/searchresults.aspx?intSaleID=21644#intSaleID=21644

some of this stuff is (relatively) cheap, if you stray away from the really big names. i'm talking names like angstrom, fahrenheit, ampere, babbage, von neumann, can be had for a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand bucks

some of you may wonder what the fuss is all about, but to me, this stuff is awesome. its the fruits of the enlightment, the intellectual explosion of mankind, solid proof of the greatness of mankind, that you can buy and hold in your hands

a lot of us here work in computer science. well, for $2500 you can own the first edition book of something that pretty much started the entire computer field, boolean logic:

BOOLE, George (1815-1864). An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. London: Macmillan and Co., 1854.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5084071

well, maybe not $2500 after i just hyped the dang thing

christie's should be paying me a dang commission!

i knew i should have included a link to christie's site for the auction:

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/searchresults.aspx?intSaleID=21644#intSaleID=21644

some of this stuff is (relatively) cheap, if you stray away from the really big names. i'm talking names like angstrom, fahrenheit, ampere, babbage, von neumann, can be had for a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand bucks

some of you may wonder what the fuss is all about, but to me, this stuff is awesome. its the fruits of the enlightment, the intellectual explosion of mankind, solid proof of the greatness of mankind, that you can buy and hold in your hands

a lot of us here work in computer science. well, for $2500 you can own the first edition book of something that pretty much started the entire computer field, boolean logic:

BOOLE, George (1815-1864). An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. London: Macmillan and Co., 1854.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5084071

well, maybe not $2500 after i just hyped the dang thing

christie's should be paying me a dang commission!

I think I'd go for the Feynman - Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the United States Government.

I've never really understood paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for pieces of art, but I could imagine buying things from this action had I the means.
Maybe I'm more of a boorish nerd than I previously imagined.

I've never really understood paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for pieces of art, but I could imagine buying things from this action had I the means.
Maybe I'm more of a boorish nerd than I previously imagined.

$576,000 for the enterprise

$576,000 for the enterprise

Incorrect

It actually went for $48,000. And at least to me that 8k matters.

PICARD'S RESSIKAN FLUTE - Lot 537

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LOTDETAI L.ASP?sid=&intObjectID=4780101

Lot Results

http://www.christies.com/auction/results/results_l otlist.asp?saleno=NYC1778&page=6

Incorrect

It actually went for $48,000. And at least to me that 8k matters.

PICARD'S RESSIKAN FLUTE - Lot 537

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LOTDETAI L.ASP?sid=&intObjectID=4780101

Lot Results

http://www.christies.com/auction/results/results_l otlist.asp?saleno=NYC1778&page=6

Lot descriptions

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LotSumma ry.asp?intSaleID=20723

Final Prices

http://www.christies.com/auction/results/results_l otlist.asp?saleno=NYC1778

Thousands of lots, have fun!

Lot descriptions

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LotSumma ry.asp?intSaleID=20723

Final Prices

http://www.christies.com/auction/results/results_l otlist.asp?saleno=NYC1778

Thousands of lots, have fun!

http://www.christies.com/CatSubDetail.asp?catalog_ name=Catalogues&wich=1&category_name=Pop+and+Film+ Memorabilia&CatID=1087

$90 US for the two volume catalog, not per volume. The price for slating your curiousity just went down 50%!

Slashdot has some kind of deal with NYT I think. I guess it's working for them. That and the HUGE AD boobietrap that covered my computer sceen when my mouse pointer touched the MS VISIO 2005 banner at the top of this page. Anyways bugmenot worked for the article. Or you could google "christies startrek" and go strait to the auction page. OOOH, Picard's "flute" is on the block! http://www.christies.com/special_sites/startrek/ov erview.asp

http://www.christies.com/special_sites/startrek/ov erview.asp

Tragically it is in Flash.

I wonder if they have the dilithium crystals from "Mudd's Women"? If you ever need a dilithium crystal there's really no substitute.

unless you accept Ebays twisted definition of tied as "closer than the bidding increment"

Given that some of these documents (including Turing's Proof of Computing) are just prints of some antique conference proceedings, I would think twice about cracking the piggy.

Now, if these were Turing's original manuscripts, I'd might even consider spilling the 20000 for them (of course, my wife would leave me if she found out what I bought for that price) =)

in the form of a winged polyphallus.