Yesterday, Profiles in History held it’s sale event liquidating the Debbie Reynolds collection, and the hobby and media at large are reeling at the prices realized at auction. Held at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, the auction featured an incredible assortment of original wardrobe memorabilia from classic Hollywood. Highlights include the famous “subway” dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, which sold for more than $5.6 million (with fees), “test” ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz fetched $627,3000, Dorthy’s “test dress” sold for $1,119,300, and a bowler hat worn by Charlie Chaplin realized $135,300.
Note: Prices above reflect highest of a sliding scale of Buyer’s Premium fees (would be less if bid in person and paid by cash/wire)
Overall, material sold in this auction realized much higher prices than many expected, myself included. In my initial review of the auction catalog, I personally felt that many of the estimates were extremely high, and in looking at the results now, I can say that overall my assessment of those estimates was completely off the mark.
Truly, the values realized at auction this weekend by Profiles in History are absolutely remarkable, and consequently, raise a number of questions.
One, what contributed to such interest and high values?
- Is it that they are from the personal collection of a real Hollywood icon, Debbie Reynolds?
- Has there been a real desire for more “vintage” and “classic” material that has mostly been unmet over the past several years?
- Did a lot of interest and publicity in the international mainstream media bring out new collectors and investors to this marketplace?
- How much has the Hollywood Treasures television series contributed to expanding the awareness of this collectibles field?
Two, how many of the participants in this auction were new to this marketplace?
- And of those that were first time participants in such an auction, how many were involved in bidding on some of the more significant pieces?
- How many would be classified as “collectors”, how many “investors”, and how many were representing museums and other organizations that preserve and archive for the public benefit?
Three, how will this sale impact the hobby going forward?
- Is this the dawn of a new era of collecting, with new benchmarks?
- Or is this a one-time, unique event that will not be duplicated in its success for some time?
- Is there truly more value in actual historic/vintage/classic material, compared with material from more modern fare? Will this sale have any impact at all on the latter?
Four, will this sale “bring out” similar material, with owners of such pieces being motivated to capitalize on the increased (real or perceived) value of such memorabilia?
- Will we see, in future auction events, a shift towards including more vintage material, at the expense of the more contemporary equivalents?
Five, with new participants in the marketplace, will this sale prompt them to seek out more material, or was this a singular event to participate in?
- In the past, I’ve written about the “hype premium”, or an adjusted inflation on values due to hype surrounding the sale of certain material. How much did “hype” factor into the sale of this material?
- Or did the true iconic nature of some of the pieces really inspire many to participate in the sale and bidding?
For the majority of these open-ended questions, time will tell.
It is difficult to measure the health and success of this field, and often this is done by evaluating the values realized on pieces and comparing with the context of prices realized on the same of similar material in the past. By all accounts, by this measurement, the Debbie Reynolds sale was a huge success. Conversely, this material was made available at the expensive of Ms. Reynolds’ dream to create a museum to share the collection with the public, which, despite her amazing efforts, was never able to be realized. Again, while we can all appreciate the accomplishment of such an amazing collection doing well at auction, it also underscores the fact that all of these important pop culture artifacts are, for the most part, looked after by collectors and investors, rather than museums and archivists. Though thankfully there are some of the latter, generally speaking, a large portion of Hollywood history is held in private hands.
Most alternative analysis regarding the state of the hobby is generally subjective and complex, so it will be interesting to see what transpires over the balance of the year. In any event, this sale will be a benchmark with which to measure other public auctions of original props and costumes.
As a side note, the Original Prop Blog had covered the efforts of inQuicity and their “Save the Dress” campaign to “crowdsource” donations in an attempt to win at auction the famous “subway dress” worn by Marilyn Monroe (see original article and follow-up article). The company published a press release yesterday explaining that they bid up to $2.1 million in their attempt to win the auction:
Jason DeBord