Want to go weightless with James Cameron? To raise funds for the X PRIZE Foundation, legendary director James Cameron is taking part in an auction of seats aboard a Zero-G Experience flight taking off from Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles, California on October 9, 2010. Additional X PRIZE Board Members and special guests have purchased seats to participate in this special event and three available seats for this adventure are being offered up on eBay in an auction that ends on September 3, 2010.
The weightless flight will take place aboard G-FORCE ONE, a specially modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft. In the video shown above, Cameron asks bidders to come join him on a flight saying that he and his wife Suzi are excited about going on this flight. He has gone weightless before and says “you want to do this, you absolutely want to do this.”
All proceeds from this eBay auction will go the X PRIZE Foundation to help design future prizes intended to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. There are two auctions, on for a single seat and one for a pair of seats. The package includes pre-flight training, a VIP lunch reception with lecture from James Cameron discussing Avatar, ZERO-G, and humanity’s future in space, a ZERO-G flight suit with Avatar and XPRIZE patch, the 90-minute flight of approximately 15 parabolas including Lunar gravity (one sixth your weight), Martian gravity (one third your weight), and Zero gravity (weightlessness). You will experience approximately eight minutes of weightlessness. You’ll come away with in-flight photography and video of you floating with James Cameron and a post-flight photo with James Cameron and X PRIZE chairman Peter Diamandis as well as a special Avatar gift bag from Twentieth Century Fox.
This weekend brings wine and food fans to Sonoma for the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend running September 3-5, 2010. The centerpiece of the weekend is the famous Sonoma Valley Wine Auction on September 5 at Cline Cellars which features a variety of tempting auction lots. Some of this year’s lots include the Francis Ford Coppola Live Lot which offers trips to Italy and Belize, a Coppola film library and signed wine bottles; the St. Francis Vineyard and Winery - Sex and the City package which offers a private dinner with an unnamed “Sex and the City” star at St. Francis Winery & Vineyards, a stay in San Francisco and five cases and four magnums of St. Francis wine; chef camp with tutorials from top Sonoma chefs; as well as plenty of wine lots including “Magnum Force” a collection of prized magnums from Sonoma County vintners.
This year’s auction has a California beach party theme with the tagline “Endless Sonoma.” In the spirit of the theme the growers and vintners will introduce the lots wearing surfer-style costumes. Hubert Keller of Fleur de Lys in San Francisco and winner of “Top Chef Masters” will team up with Kendall-Jackson executive chef Justin Wangler to present the first course of the auction’s meal (an oxtail, fingerling potato and truffle ‘cappuccino,’) and other regional chefs will prepare the rest of the menu. The menu will include Sonoma-sourced specialties like curried Gravenstein apple miniature grilled cheese sandwiches; eggplant caponata; steak Florentine; pomegranate and herb grill lamb loin; artisan cheeses, breads and more.
A partnership between Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Foundation and Sonoma County Vintners, Sonoma Wine Country Weekend is the area’s largest wine and food fundraiser, having jointly donated more than $10 million to local charities that support students, children, farm workers and people in need. Friday winemakers lunches are $85 a person, Friday specialty dinners are $175 and Friday winemaker dinners are $160. On Saturday, the Taste of Sonoma event is $150, the Grand Reserve tasting is $195, the Honorary Chair Dinner: St. Francis Winery is $175 and the Saturday winemaker dinners are $160 each. Tickets for the Sunday auction are $500, half of that is tax deductible.
The Naples Winter Wine Festival isn’t for another few months but one of the lots has already been announced. For those who have been chasing down 100-point wines, save room in your cellar. One of the auction lots at the elite wine festival to be held
will offer an unprecedented auction lot of 100 bottles of 100-point wines at its annual event January 28-30, 2011 in Naples, Florida. Decanter reports that wines in the ‘Perfection Lot’ include a 1955 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion, a 1989 Chateau Petrus, and a 1985 Domaine Romanee-Conti valued at more than $11,000. All of the wines were rated by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and other wine publications, including Wine Spectator. Auction proceeds go to help underprivileged and at-risk children, the Naples wine event has raised $82.5 million for local children’s charities since 2001.
From the depths of the ocean to your wine cellar. Spectrum Wine Auctions, Southern California’s leading auction house of fine and rare wine, will hold its first sale of the fall 2010 auction season on September 24 including a bottle of shipwrecked Madeira wine dating to the 1800s. The bottle, which is estimated at $1200 was discovered off of the Savannah, Georgia coast by professional diver Bill Kinsey in the late 1970s. The lot comes from a collector who bought the only two bottles from the shipwreck in 1980 at The Heublein Premiere National Auction of Rare Wines XII. He tasted the first one on television and noted that it was fantastic and in perfect condition. The thick mud on the ocean floor protected the bottles from worms and water.
The sale will take place at 6 p.m. PDT at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills and Saturday, September 25 at 9:00 a.m. HKT at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. Other highlights from the sale include some of the greatest vintages from producers in Bordeaux, Burgundy and California including 37 lots of Harlan Cabernet Sauvignon, 47 lots of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon and several verticals of Chateau Montelena in magnum, three-liter and five-liter bottles. The total pre-sale estimate for the 761 lots on offer is $3.2 million.
You can buy anything these days, especially in New York City. To wit, Guernsey’s auction house said a copper chunk of nose crafted to fit the Statue of Liberty’s face during her 1980s restoration will be auctioned on September 24 at the Park Avenue Armory. The two-foot-long section was one of four created to replace the Statue of Liberty’s nose, and it’s the only one that likely ever will be sold. Of the other three, one currently adorns the statue, one was destroyed, and another is in a private collection.
Other iconic items up for auction that day include a motorcycle from President John F. Kennedy’s Dallas motorcade, James Dean’s sunglasses, the last home run ball from the original Yankee Stadium, Barbra Streisand’s first test record and a photo negative from Marilyn Monroe’s nude calendar shoot.
Florida International University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management is launching their first FIU Hospitality Online Auction on September 3, 2010 with a variety of travel and food-related auction lots. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the school’s scholarship program; grants for students to attend industry conferences; and funding for student teaching assistantships. The auction is sponsored by Carnival Cruise Lines and includes over 100 auction items available for bidding from September 3 to October 3, 2010. Lots range in value from $250 to $7,500. Bid on travel packages from Loews Hotels across the US and Canada, Fontainebleau Miami Beach, Ritz Carlton Fort Lauderdale, Carnival Cruise Lines, Sandals and Beaches Resorts, InterContinental Hotels throughout China and more as well as entertainment experiences including tickets to Miami Heat games, the Rachael Ray Show, The View and Jungle Island. Other lots give bidders a chance to get a bit of the FIU experience through classes like
pastry cooking and “brew your own label” classes with FIU professors.
The September issue of Smithsonian magazine has a great article on Haitian artists and their lives after the earthquake that killed 230,000 in January 2010. Smithsonian commissioned a painting by Haitian artist Frantz Zéphirin for the September 2010 issue cover which will be auctioned off for charity. The painting is more than just a piece of art it’s representation of the response to Haiti’s earthquake. The birds represent those who have offered help and carry words such as justice, education, health, and peace in their beaks. The bags with dollar signs show that Haiti is still in dire financial need.
Fifty percent of the proceeds from the auction will benefit the Smithsonian Institution-Haiti Cultural Recovery Project and the other half will go to the artist and the Gallerie Monnin, which represents Zéphirin and plans to donate part of its proceeds to the Dallas Monnin Foundation, a foundation that hopes to protect the environment in Haiti through reforestation, to conserve watershed areas and to conduct civic education classes for children in the Port Salut area. The auction starts on September 8 and ends on September 17. The minimum bid is $4,000.
Debbie Reynolds has a taste for old movie nostalgia. There’s always something revealing about celebrities auctioning off some of their belongings. It’s a little window into their lives. On September 13 at Bonhams & Butterfields in Los Angeles, some of the pieces in the Fine European Furniture and Decorative Arts sale will be from the personal collection of the iconic star.
Reynolds began her collection in no ordinary way. She started with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) auction in 1970, picking up memorabilia and costumes, props and set decor, including furniture, chandeliers and decorative arts. Her collection includes various items from 20th Century Fox, RKO and Warner Brothers, as well as items from the Estates of Harold Lloyd and Mary Pickford.
According to Reynolds many of the items were sourced by MGM and Fox Studios from around the world for use in several films including George Cukor’s Camille (1936); Marie Antoinette (1938); Beau Brummell (1954) and Desirée (1954). Shown above are a pair of Louis XV polychrome decorated mirrors that are estimated at $8,000-12,000.
Property from the University of California Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California; the Estate of John Barker Hickox, Paradise Valley, Arizona and the Daniel G. Volkmann, Jr. Trust, will also be featured during the September auction.
When is a ham worth $1.6 million? The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that a 16-pound country ham sold for $100,000 a pound at the 47th annual Kentucky Farm Bureau Country Ham Breakfast. Bernard Trager, chairman of Republic Bank and Trust, and Dr. Mark Lynn & Associates, owner of Dr. Bizer’s Vision World each contributed $800,000 for the ham which was produced by Broadbent B&B Foods of Kuttawa. The breakfast was attended by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson who clearly had a good time “hamming it up” at the annual breakfast. According to the article, Trager came up with the idea of combining the bids. Dr. Mark Lynn & Associates plans to donate its bid to the University of Louisville, Visually Impaired Preschool Services and Eastern Area Community Ministries and Republic Bank and Trust will send give most of its money to local health care and education. The Kentucky Farm Bureau has helped raise more than $5.6 million for local charities, educational and philanthropic groups through the 47-year history of the auction.
A massive 1,040 carat emerald heads to auction this weekend on August 29 at LiveAuctioneers.com. The Polly Emerald will be offered for sale by GovernmentAuction.com. The gemstone has been appraised for $454,000 by a GIA certified appraiser. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding for this special auction, which will consist of the lone lot selling at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern Time. There is no reserve, the stone goes to the highest bidder. For this auction they are accepting phone bids and absentee bids with a $50,000 deposit.
Many celebrities own lavish vacation homes and some of them, luckily, like to share. Fashion designer Donna Karan has donated a stay on her private estate on Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos for auction on the charity auction site charitybuzz.com to raise funds for The Ellen Hermanson Foundation. The foundation was established in 1997 to honor the memory of Ellen Hermanson, a crusader in the fight against breast cancer. Proceeds from the auction will help fund the Ellen Hermanson Breast Center at Southampton Hospital.
Karan’s estate, known simply as “The Sanctuary,” is a Zen-like family retreat in easy reach of white sand beaches and turquoise waters. It has an infinity pool lined with black volcanic stone and the home is graced with Karan’s collection of African and Asian art that adorns the white walls. The vacation up for bid is for eight people for four days and the auction ends on September 8. The lot is valued at over $40,000 and has a minimum next bid of $17,000.
Fans of the television show “Lost” demonstrated their fandom with their wallets over the weekend. The auction held by Profiles in History at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar drew eager bids who snapped up everything from a $5,000 12-pack of Dharma Initiative beer to a $47,500 blue Volkswagen Dharma van. The Wall Street Journal reports that the amount of bidders was so big that Saturday’s sale ran until midnight because each item took longer to sell. The sale netted $900,000 on Saturday according to the NY Times. Associated Content says that the total for the two-day event was $1.8 million (an unofficial calculation made by LostARGS.com). According to their data available in downloadable PDF files, one of the sets of three Oceanic airline seats shown above sold for $2,250.
Other items that sold for large amounts included Daniel Faraday’s journal for $27,500, Hurley’s Camaro for $25,000, a copy of the pilot script, signed by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof for $15,000 and the fail-safe key turned by Desmond Hume for $11,000.
The pre-sale estimate came good for Larry Ellison and his 1995 McLaren F1. Gooding & Company auctioned the Oracle honcho’s supercar during Pebble Beach weekend, and the gavel slammed for good at $3,575,000. True, that’s less than half the price of the top Gooding & Co draw, a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider Competizione that went for $7,260,000. Still, the McLaren came in at #5 on Gooding’s top ten money earners that weekend.
More telling, the car is only 15 years old and only cost $970,000 when new - the next youngest car was from 1969, a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Speciale, that sold for half the price of the McLaren. The McLaren is probably the only production car out there in the last 30 years, and certainly the only nineties car, to claim that kind of appreciation. Not that Larry Ellison really needs it, but we hear he’s serious about the Benjamins.
The last time I mentioned the Olive 8 condo complex in Seattle was in 2008 when the developer offered prospective buyers a price guarantee. Now on September 19, 34 condos in the building will be auctioned off in a sale conducted by Kennedy Wilson.
The 34 condominiums are located above the downtown Hyatt at Olive 8 and were previously priced from $395,000 to $1,235,000 with five of the 34 condominiums previously listed at over one million dollars each. Starting bids at the September 19th auction will range from $160,000 to $440,000 with all five million-dollar-plus condos included in the bidding.
The one- and two-bedroom condos at Olive 8 have up to 1,586 sq ft of living space and share the Hyatt’s amenities including room service and housekeeping. Residents-only amenities include a 24-hour concierge, access to the Club Lounge and outdoor terrace, billiards and entertainment rooms, and a dog run. Units have hardwood flooring, glass walls, modern kitchens and bathrooms with deep soaking tubs. The 34 condominiums up for auction are situated between the 18th and 26th floors. The auction is offering a special incentive of $5,000 toward closing costs to those who who obtain financing through Bank of America Home Loans and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and close escrow within 45 calendar days of the auction.
A rare 1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider Competizione (above) with coachwork by Scaglietti fetched a whopping $7.26 million at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach sale in California over the weekend, setting a new world record for the model and capping a round of stunning auction results. The stunning roadster, which took 5th place overall at the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring race, was just one of several multimillion-dollar Ferraris to cross the block over the weekend. Gooding & Co. also hammered down a rare 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB SEFAC Hot Rod for $6.1 million, and a 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza for $6.7 million. As we reported previously, Bonhams set another world record over the weekend with the $4 million sale of a 1970 Porsche Gulf-JWA Le Mans 917K coupe, while RM Auctions netted $4.6 million for a 1954 Ferrari 375 MM Berlinetta, among others. Gooding achieved a new record in sales, realizing $64.5 million for 106 cars during the landmark event.
Sotheby’s New York is often the site to buy fine art and collectibles but for one night it can be where you buy your vegetables. The Art of Farming benefit on September 23 will turn Sotheby’s Manhattan showroom into a very fancy farmers’ market with heirloom vegetables including Turkish Orange Eggplant, Lady Godiva Squash and Pink Banana Pumpkin up for sale for $1,000 a crate. The Wall Street Journal reports that the auction is the first of its kind by Sotheby’s and that the McEnroe Farm in Millerton, New York is growing some of the rare veggies. Beekman Farm, the farm seen on the Discovery Channel’s “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” is also growing some of the items. Other foodie-friendly auction lots including celebrity chef dinners and produce shares in local farms. The event includes a cocktail reception and a four-course dinner created by celebrity chefs.
Proceeds from the event benefit GrowNYC New Farmers Development Project and the Sylvia Center, a program that teaches children to eat well. At the end of the auction attendees will be asked if the want to donate $1,000 for one of 10 crates of the mixed heirloom vegetables. The contents of the crates then will be donated to two local food pantries. People can buy vegetables for themselves through a silent auction. Tickets to the auction and reception are $250 and gala dinner tickets are $1,000.
The event is part of Eat Drink Local week running in New York between September 26 and October 6.
The new owner of late reclusive author J.D. Salinger’s compound in Cornish, New Hampshire is apparently selling off some of the house’s fixtures with an eye towards cashing on on his literary reputation. The Vault of Forsythe, Inc., a collectibles dealer based in North Carolina, is handling the items and has just listed the toilet from Salinger’s home on eBay with a “buy it now” price of $1 million, though other offers are being accepted and five have apparently already been made. This could well be a hoax aimed at those who are overly worshipful of the Catcher in the Rye author, but as the vendor seems legit we doubt it. We won’t speculate on the process of authentication however. The full listing for the curious commode reads as follows:
Legendary architect Philip Johnson has never swayed far from the public’s eye, even though he’s been deceased since January 2005. He’s back, this time with the news that a group of items from his archive, including his hand-drawn sketches for towers that helped define postmodern architecture, are to be sold. They had been held by one of Johnson’s former partners, Raj Ahuja, who had them in storage for years. The cache contains more than 25,000 design sketches, working drawings, renderings, and photographs from the second half of Johnson’s architectural career, covering more than 120 projects from 1968-1992. See this New York Times slideshow for a bit more info.
A rare 1970s Porsche racecar just fetched $4 million at Bonhams‘ sale in Monterey, setting a new world record for the most expensive Porsche ever sold at auction. The stunning and historic car, the ex-Jurgen Neuhaus/Jurgen Barth 1972-73 European Interserie and David Hobbs/Mike Hailwood Gulf-JW Automotive team 1972-73 Porsche 917 Interserie Spyder, neé 1970 Gulf-JWA Le Mans 917K Coupe (above), was hammered down after fierce bidding. The car is similar to the famed model driven by Steve McQueen in Le Mans. Many other strong prices were attained for Bonhams’ rarest offerings, including a 1930 Mercedes-Benz 7.1 Liter SS Tourer for $2.5 million, and the ex-works, Gerhard Mitter/Lucien Bianchi Nurburgring 1000 kms-leading 1967 Porsche 910 Endurance Racing Works Coupe for $800,000. Earlier we reported on the nine Ferraris which each fetched over $1 million at RM Auctions‘ own Monterey sale.
When a television show ends there are a lot of props. Some get used for other shows but many get sold off. After ABC’s television show “Lost” had its finale last spring, there were plenty of items that were suddenly no longer needed. Hollywood props and memorabilia auctioneer Profiles in History is helping ABC Studios to auction off costumes, props and various set pieces from the show in a massive two-day auction event at the the Barker Hanger at Santa Monica Airport on August 21 and 22. Over 1,000 items are being auctioned off from costumes, to Volkswagen vans to pieces of Oceanic Flight 815 like the airplane chairs shown above. Our sister blog TV Squad rounded up the top ten most covetable items including Hurley’s winning lottery ticket and Camaro and the ‘Lost’ finale script signed by the executive producers.
There has been some controversy over certain auction items and whether or not they were used on screen. The Prop Blog has been covering this topic extensively breaking down some of the terminology. A screen-used prop is one that appears and is seen clearly on screen. These props are most valuable. Other props can be “production-made” which means that they were made for the show but didn’t necessarily appear on screen. These props are less valuable. Most valuable are the “hero props” which are scene specific. Other types of props include back-ups, stunt props and double props. If you are just buying for your own enjoyment you don’t really need to know the difference, except to make sure you don’t pay too much, but for later resale these distinctions are key.
Fly Weightless With James Cameron originally appeared on Luxist on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
