Sotheby's held an auction of 'Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana' yesterday, but only realized US$3,697,134, as the top-estimate lot, 259, which offered William Faulkner's Nobel Prize for Literature medal as well as his acceptance speech -- with a $500,000 to 1,000,000 estimate -- apparently failed to sell (as did a set of his books with a $300,000-400,000 estimate).
While a lot of items did go roughly in their estimate range the number of unsold items and a few outliers raise questions about what the hell they were thinking: lot 10, in particular, -- a 16th century Louise Labé first edition -- may have been hard to price ("No copy of this edition has appeared at auction since 1975") but the fact that they were off by a factor of about 100 to 1 (the estimate was $3,000-5,000, and it went for a staggering $485,000) suggests something went woefully wrong. Another item that went far beyond the estimate ('only' by a factor of 10 to 1 ...) was the David Foster Wallace lot -- some letters and a story manuscript from the mid-1980s (estimated at $10,000-15,000, it sold for $125,000).
The background information about the Faulkner Nobel stuff is pretty interesting -- including the fact that he apparently nearly lost (or tossed ?) the medal, as:
While a lot of items did go roughly in their estimate range the number of unsold items and a few outliers raise questions about what the hell they were thinking: lot 10, in particular, -- a 16th century Louise Labé first edition -- may have been hard to price ("No copy of this edition has appeared at auction since 1975") but the fact that they were off by a factor of about 100 to 1 (the estimate was $3,000-5,000, and it went for a staggering $485,000) suggests something went woefully wrong. Another item that went far beyond the estimate ('only' by a factor of 10 to 1 ...) was the David Foster Wallace lot -- some letters and a story manuscript from the mid-1980s (estimated at $10,000-15,000, it sold for $125,000).
The background information about the Faulkner Nobel stuff is pretty interesting -- including the fact that he apparently nearly lost (or tossed ?) the medal, as:
On the day Faulkner and Jill were to leave Stockholm, the Nobel medal was nowhere to be found. Bags were unpacked and re-packed. After a search of the Ambassador's residence, the resourceful Button at last found the medal buried in the dirt of a potted palm.