If there’s one thing auction sales can tell us, it’s that you really can put a price on just about anything. From microscopic handbags to historic lighthouses to an Emmy-winning crossword puzzle partner, this year saw newfound worth and record sales in all kinds of things — old and new; material and intangible.
NPR’s audience, meanwhile, found more value in some stories over others about the items on offer. We’ve rounded up some of our most popular reads in auction news from 2023. The best part? They’re not for sale.
A long-lost painting bought for $4 sold for nearly $200K
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A lucky shopper bought an original N.C. Wyeth painting for less than the price of a latte at a Savers thrift store in New Hampshire. The winning bid was for over $190,000. But, as it turned out, the buyer never materialized.
Twitter auctioned off its office supplies, including a pizza oven and neon bird sign
After Elon Musk took over Twitter and before he turned it into what he’s renamed as X, his cost-cutting run on the company included an auction of “surplus corporate office assets” from the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
The government offered up 10 lighthouses
Now that GPS can steer boats to safety, what is a lighthouse but a hot seaside property?
She left her 2007 iPhone in its box for over a decade. It sold for $63K
Don’t underestimate nostalgia.
Bisrat Kinfemichael, a professor of accounting and finance at the New York Institute of Technology, told NPR after the record-breaking sale in February that demand has made unopened first-generation iPhones into “extremely rare commodities, similar to precious metals.”
An original Princess Leia dress, expected to fetch $2 million at auction, went unsold
One thing that didn’t sell at auction? What’s believed to be the only surviving Princess Leia look from the 1977 film that kicked off the franchise.
A chance to solve a crossword puzzle with Natasha Lyonne
It was just one of a handful of clever ways A-listers leveraged their celebrity to raise money for the writers and actors strikes that brought Hollywood to a halt this summer.
Post Malone set a new record in the game card industry
The rapper, a known fan of Magic: The Gathering, bought a one-of-a-kind cardfrom the fantasy tabletop game for a reported $2 million.
A tepid auction took the wind out of wind farm sales
Even leases for offshore wind production in the Gulf of Mexico, a game-changer for green energy, went up for bidding this summer — a first for the region. NPR’s Planet Money looked into why the offers for the patches of sea didn’t meet expectations for a competitive auction.
Michael Jordan’s “Last Dance” sneakers sold for a record $2.2 million
The basketball phenom’s Air Jordans, the pair he wore during the 1998 NBA Finals, were the most expensive sport shoes ever sold.
2,000 near-threatened white rhinos went up for auction
A man who’d been trying to save the white rhinos of South Africa from being poached into extinction needed some help caring for his massive herd.
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