Buzz
Auctions can be completely unpredictable. Bidders may unexpectedly fight for something that wasn't even the main attraction, while the primary items often get overlooked.
Yet, when a rare and renowned artifact goes up for auction, it's assumed that someone will claim it. But that's not always the case. Even priceless and history-changing artifacts sometimes go unsold, and other times, items that mirror previous multi-million-dollar sales are left behind.
10. The Elusive Darwin Letter
Letters from the renowned naturalist Charles Darwin hold strong market value. A four-page letter to his niece was sold for $59,142, and another letter, where Darwin expressed his doubts about the Bible, fetched $197,000.
When Nate D. Sanders Auctions presented another of Darwin's documents, they were hopeful for a sale. In 2016, a year after the record-breaking Bible letter, this new piece seemed promising. It was rare, handwritten, and dated December 12, 1860, with Darwin's signature.
The letter was written in response to British author and biologist George Wallich, who had sent Darwin a book about deep-sea life. While it was a thank-you note, Darwin’s questions revealed his fascination with Wallich's research, probing him for details about starfish, basaltic pebbles, and foraminifera (single-celled organisms with shells).
In the letter, Darwin also mentioned plans to release an updated edition of his groundbreaking book, On the Origin of Species, which had been published the year before. These words showcase Darwin's passion and relentless curiosity. Despite its reserve price of $69,500, no one claimed it.
9. The Battling Dinosaurs
The iconic T. rex fossil named Sue stands proudly at the Chicago Field Museum. In 1997, the museum acquired it for a staggering $8.36 million, far exceeding the initial expectation of $1 million.
Then came a discovery in the Montana badlands, where bones were uncovered that were expected to break Sue’s record for dinosaur auctions. These remains were from two dinosaurs locked in combat—a new species of ceratopsian herbivore and a predator resembling a tyrannosaurus.
Their positioning indicates they were battling when a landslide buried them. Their worth is partly due to the striking image they present, as well as being the most complete specimens from North America's Late Cretaceous period. The preservation is so remarkable that even fragments of their skin remain intact.
With much anticipation from both museums and the public, the “dueling dinosaurs” were auctioned off in 2013. Bonhams auction house hosted the event in New York, starting the bidding at $3 million. The auctioneer pushed the price up to $5.5 million, but no further offers were made.
Museums couldn't meet the estimated ceiling price of $7 million to $9 million. The highest bid failed to match or exceed the fossils' undisclosed reserve price, and the auction concluded without a sale.
8. The Cook Waistcoat
Captain James Cook is remembered as a legendary explorer. In 1770, he claimed Australia for Britain, and nine years later, he was fatally stabbed in Hawaii during a confrontation with locals.
One of Captain Cook's waistcoats survived. Initially owned by his family, it was later sold in 1912 to an antiques dealer. The purchaser, a British industrialist, gifted it to renowned Australian pianist Ruby Rich.
Rich made alterations to the intricately embroidered waistcoat to fit a woman's figure and wore it to social events. In 1981, a private collector bought the garment from the Rich family and, in 2017, put it on the auction block.
Regarded as one of the most important pieces related to Cook, the 250-year-old waistcoat was valued between A$800,000 and A$1.1 million. At the auction in Sydney, the bids climbed to a notable A$575,000. However, this amount was far below its true worth, and the sale ultimately fell through.
7. The First Edition of Hamlet
Throughout her life, Viscountess Mary Eccles was deeply passionate about books. Over the span of more than 60 years, she meticulously curated an extraordinary library at her New Jersey home. Upon her passing in 2003, her collection was made available by the auction house Christie’s the following year.
Primarily composed of 17th- and 18th-century volumes, the collection featured a copy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This rare first edition, printed in 1611 while Shakespeare was still alive, was also the oldest privately owned copy of the work.
Given the Eccles library's reputation as one of the most valuable collections of recent years, it drew significant interest from potential buyers at the New York auction. Other works by Shakespeare were included, all of which sold. In fact, 98 percent of the collection was acquired by new owners.
A surprising lot that didn’t sell, however, was the Hamlet. Christie’s acknowledged that their expectations may have been too high, with hopes for bids reaching up to $2 million. Yet, it’s hard to blame them—just three years prior, another first edition Hamlet from the 17th century had sold for £3.4 million.
6. The Lost Van Dyck
Another exceptional 17th-century masterpiece handled by Christie’s was a painting by Flemish artist Van Dyck. Its modern-day journey began like a promising fairy tale for its owner.
In 1992, Father Jamie MacLeod stumbled upon the painting in a Cheshire shop and acquired it for just £400. It remained hanging in his hallway for years until the famous show Antiques Roadshow visited and recognized it as an extraordinary work by Van Dyck.
This particular piece, titled Head Study of a Man in a Ruff, is part of a trio known as The Magistrates of Brussels. These paintings once adorned the Brussels town hall until the building was destroyed by the French in 1695.
The rediscovered painting now completes the rest of the collection held at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Told that the oil portrait could fetch up to £500,000, the priest had hoped to use the proceeds to purchase new bells for the town church. However, when Christie’s auctioned it in 2014, no one took home the painting.
5. The First Ever Microchip
In 1958, a little-known Jack Kilby crafted an unusual brick that would go on to revolutionize the world. As a Texas Instruments employee, Kilby had just created the very first microchip. The unremarkable chip, a germanium wafer adorned with gold wiring and mounted on a glass sheet, was encased in plastic—far from glamorous, yet it would forever change technology.
This rudimentary integrated circuit earned Kilby the most coveted award among academics. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking work. Not long ago, the original chip was included in a lot at a Christie’s auction.
The auction lot also featured two additional items complementing the historic microchip: a later, more advanced prototype and a letter from Kilby, written in 1964, that explained how the chips functioned.
The highest bid for the collection reached $850,000. Once again, the reserve price was not met. Christie’s had anticipated the final bid to fall between $1 million and $2 million, and as a result, the auction was halted.
4. The Earliest Manuscript on Relativity
Seven years after the famous physicist Albert Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, he drafted a related manuscript. This 72-page document, written in 1912, is the earliest and most comprehensive paper Einstein produced on the subject. Due to its unpublished status, its existence remained largely unknown.
The manuscript was first made public in 1987. It was passed down from Professor Erich Marx as an inheritance to a descendant, who later auctioned it through Sotheby’s for $1.2 million. Despite claims that no new revelations could be found within the paper, its value extended beyond academic interest. It offered personal insight into Einstein’s thought process for his later theory of general relativity.
Most notably, Einstein wrote “EL=mc” in the manuscript and crossed out the L. This alteration reveals the development of what would become his most famous equation. When Sotheby’s offered the manuscript again in 1996, the room was packed with eager bidders. However, the anonymous owner rejected the highest bid of $3.3 million. Another mysterious reserve price blocked the sale, even though the manuscript was expected to fetch at least $4 million.
3. The Controversial Beethoven Piece
Not every underwhelming auction result is due to lack of interest or insufficient funds. Sometimes, it involves disputes between experts and the auction house itself. In 2016, Sotheby’s put up for auction a piece by composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), expecting it to fetch around £200,000.
Unfortunately, a public conflict ensued when Professor Barry Cooper appeared on a radio show, arguing that the Allegretto in B minor was not written by Beethoven, as Sotheby’s had claimed, but rather was the work of a poor copyist.
The single page bears the inscription “composed and written by Beethoven himself November 29 1817 at Vienna.” However, this phrase was not penned by the composer, but by an English vicar, whose descendants kept the document in their possession.
Sotheby’s maintained that experts had authenticated the document, and that Cooper declined to examine it in person. Cooper, a scholar with over 40 years of experience working with Beethoven's manuscripts, had only studied a photocopy. He highlighted errors that Beethoven would never have made.
Furthermore, while Sotheby’s experts remained unnamed, Cooper was able to name scholars who supported his claim. One such scholar, Jonathan Del Mar, a renowned Beethoven expert, had examined the manuscript closely and was unconvinced of its authenticity. The conflict between the auction house and Cooper was later cited as the main reason for the lackluster outcome of the auction.
2. The MacDonald Stradivarius
A Stradivarius is considered the pinnacle of stringed instruments. Revered as the unmatched “gold standard,” only around 600 of these masterpieces crafted by Antonio Stradivari still exist today. Of these, just 10 are violas, making them exceptionally rare.
Violas resemble violins but are larger and produce a richer, deeper sound. Among them, the MacDonald Stradivarius is regarded as the finest. This rare instrument was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in 2014. Prior to that, two other Stradivarius instruments had been sold, though only one achieved a remarkable result.
In 2011, the “Lady Blunt” violin, made in 1721, set a new record for any musical instrument when it fetched a staggering $15.9 million. Just a month before the MacDonald viola's auction, another viola had been offered at Christie’s but failed to sell.
The MacDonald viola was crafted by Stradivari two years before the record-breaking violin. Pre-auction predictions had it surpassing the violin’s price, with expectations of it reaching $45 million. Unfortunately, like the other viola, it failed to meet the mark.
1. JFK Assassination Photos
On November 22, 1963, a housewife visited downtown Dallas with the hope of seeing Jackie Kennedy. With her Polaroid camera in hand, Mary Ann Moorman found a good spot. As the presidential motorcade passed by, she took two photos. The first one captured Glenn McBride, a member of the motorcycle escort. The second photo, taken in the moments following or possibly even at the instant of President Kennedy’s shooting, became iconic.
This famous photo, now widely referred to as the “grassy knoll” image, remains the only known photograph to show both the knoll area and the president’s car. Moorman kept the original Polaroids until she eventually approached Sotheby’s to auction them. However, following objections from the Kennedy family, the auction house chose not to sell them.
In 2013, at the age of 81, Moorman teamed up with Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati. The prints were valued between $50,000 and $75,000 and auctioned just ahead of the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Despite the lot failing to sell, it continued to garner attention. While the reserve price wasn’t met, several interested buyers continued post-auction negotiations with Cowan’s.
