Yesterday, “The Prop Blog” (see New Website “The Prop Blog”…) published an article citing “a source that has chosen to remain anonymous” reporting that “Profiles in History plans to auction off only what they have determined to be the top 1,000 pieces” in their upcoming LOST auction. I spoke with Profiles in History owner and CEO Joe Maddalena this morning to obtain the facts about their LOST auction, and he confirmed that they will indeed be auctioning off many thousands of assets from the show, but that there will be a total of approximately 1,000 auction catalog lots due to their having a number of themed groupings of props and costumes from the TV series sold as single lots.
In other words, one lot may contain one item or three items or a dozen items or two dozen items. As seasoned collectors and hobbyists know, it is a common auction house practice to have a single lot offering with any number of items contained within. This strategy is consistent with public comments made by Profiles in History back to their original announcement last Summer.
“ThePropBlog” article by Dan Benton can be found here: Lost Auction Short An Estimated 4,000 Props & Costumes
Following the report by Zap2It on Wednesday (see Zap2It Questions Authenticity of TV Prop Assets from… LOST Auction), this would be the second time this week that erroneous information has been published about the upcoming studio auction, according to Profiles in History. Note: Zap2It has since published an update to their original article.
Joe Maddalena stated on the record today that all of the LOST items (props, costumes, and other original assets from the studio) are accounted for, that “they are not lost“, and that Profiles is currently working to put together very compelling and interesting group set lots that will create “excitement and value” for fans of the show. The auction in planned for Summer 2010.
As Joe explained it, every character on the series has a “character bin” which includes all of the props made for and used on the show. So their plan is to place interrelated items into groupings based on themes, episodes, and other variables, to create “units of value” for auction participants.
Providing an example, Joe said, “Remember when Hurley found the blue VW bus? Well, there were a number of props in the vehicle that were very recognizable to fans, and those will probably be combined into one lot. So you’ll have the 8-track player, the tape, the bunny rabbit foot, and a few other pieces from that set and sequence sold as a single lot in the auction.”
Conversely, some of the most important hero props and costumes from the show will be auctioned off in single lot offerings, such as the game board and pieces used by Jacob and his brother (the Man in Black) in the most recent episode “Across the Sea”.
From the same episode, Profiles said that they will make various costumes group lots, such as wardrobe worn by Jacob and his brother at various ages.
Another example provided was Ben’s passports – rather than offering approximately 25 passports in 25 lots, they will be combined into a single lot of 25 passports.
The Virgin Mary heroin statues, according to Joe, will also be sold as lots of perhaps 10 statues per lot.
Again, many key hero pieces will likely be sold off as stand alone pieces in a single lot, such as Locke’s hero knife.
This overall strategy and approach to liquidating the assets on behalf of the studio was explained and published as long ago as July 2009, when I interviewed Joe exclusively about the LOST auction at San Diego Comic Con 2009 (click below for article and video interviews):
As a point of reference, even nearly one year ago, the plan was to auction many pieces in group lots. Below is an except transcript the first of the two part video series in the article linked to above, during the interview at 2:21-3:14:
Q: Do you have any idea how many items are going to be offered at auction?
A: We’re selling everything that was created. I would assume we’re going to have about 1,200 lots. But what I’m going to do is, we’re going to go season by season, episode by episode, so there are going to be a lot of group lots. So let’s say season one, episode three is your favorite episode; I may take all of the costumes of the Oceanic 815 and put them in one lot. And if it’s an episode that has The Others, I may put all their costumes in one lot. Because we have so many to sell, you know, let’s say it’s Kate or Sawyer or somebody… there’s a lot of jeans, a lot of costumes, but this way, if you have a specific episode you like, you can get everything from that episode. So it’s going to be 1,000 to 1,200 lots, but there’s probably going to be 5,000 to 10,000 items in the auction.
So the strategy and plan for grouping items into lots has been public knowledge for those who follow the hobby since the initial announcement of the event at Comic Con last year.
Only time and the publication of the auction catalog will ultimately prove which information is more accurate – consistent on the record public statements of strategy over the course of one year from the CEO of the auction house managing the sale event in conjunction with ABC and Disney, or an unnamed source who wishes to remain anonymous.
The Original Prop Blog will continue to provide coverage of the upcoming LOST auction event with information from direct and on the record sources whenever possible.
Click below for all news coverage about the LOST auction published on the Original Prop Blog to date:
Jason DeBord