Auctions are events that respond to the great demand for a particular item, whether it is more common, such as real estate, or rarer and more peculiar, as we will analyze in this article.
The second type of auctions consists in the sale of items that may not be in great demand, but because of their rarity and extravagance, end up holding a considerably high value. In this category, symbolic items of historical events, items of highly renowned personalities, among others, can be included.
In the year 2017, a bag of dust (image 1) collected in 1969 by Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon was auctioned for about $1.5 million.
A similar situation happened the same year at an event held by Christie’s, where a piece of one of the oldest meteorites on the planet (image 2) was sold. The sale of the item, which is about 4.5 billion years old, was around 16 000 euros.
In addition, the interest in artists of great renown in history led to a piece of hair of musician Elvis Presley (image 3) being auctioned for about 61 000 euros in the year 2021.
1. Moon dust bag
2. Piece of meteorite
3. Elvis Presley’s hair
4. Bluefin tuna
The items auctioned are not only connected to the events and outstanding personalities, but also to their rarity, as is the case of the auction held in Japan, where every year the largest and heaviest bluefin tuna (image 4) is sold. In January 2022, with 211kg, the fish was sold for 128 thousand euros.
Nowadays, there have been events dedicated to the buying and selling of eccentric items, such as the “Out of the ordinary” auction by the auctioneer Sworders, which even raised a total of 324,000 euros in 2019 with the sale of items such as an Ice Age bear skeleton or a stuffed polar bear.