Memorabilia and Souvenirs

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    2 Veterans Found With Stolen Military Weapons and Nazi Material, Officials Say

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    The authorities said a soldier was assaulted with a hammer as the men tried to steal gear from a military base in Washington State. The theft led investigators to a house full of contraband.Two masked men dressed in fitness clothing worn by Army Rangers made their way onto a military base some 50 miles south of Seattle on Sunday night. The authorities said the men were intent on stealing thousands of dollars in combat equipment from an Army Ranger regiment there.However, the robbery quickly went awry.A soldier walked in and began asking questions as the two men were surrounded by piles of equipment. The soldier was bludgeoned with a hammer and one of the attackers brandished a knife.As the robbers fled, they dropped a bloody rucksack full of stolen combat gear. Handwritten on the rucksack was the name “Fields,” which investigators discovered matched the last name of a man whose identification had been scanned when he drove that day onto the military installation, Joint Base Lewis-McChord.His name led the authorities to a home elsewhere in Washington State, where they said they discovered a startling scene: rooms and rooms of Nazi and white supremacy paraphernalia and a stockpile of stolen weapons.That, according to a criminal complaint filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington, tells the story of the investigation that led to the two men, identified by the authorities as Charles Ethan Fields and Levi Austin Frakes, being charged with assault, robbery and theft of government property “by force and by violence and by intimidation.”The 11-page complaint and a Facebook post by the sheriff of Thurston County, Wash., so far amounts to the only public information about the activities of the two men, who were both identified in the complaint as veterans, leaving more questions than the authorities will currently answer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gloves Lincoln Wore to Ford’s Theater Sell for $1.5 Million at Auction

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      More than 100 relics connected to President Abraham Lincoln brought in $7.9 million, auctioneers said. The proceeds will help a presidential foundation repay a loan.A pair of leather gloves worn by President Abraham Lincoln to Ford’s Theater on the night of his assassination fetched $1.5 million at auction this week, part of a trove of relics from his life and death that a debt-saddled presidential foundation had put on the block.One of two handkerchiefs that Lincoln had with him on that fateful date in American history, April 14, 1865, sold for $826,000, according to Freeman’s | Hindman in Chicago, the auction house that handled Wednesday’s sale.Like the gloves, which a friend of the Lincolns had framed for display on his dining room wall, the handkerchief was described in an auction catalog as having been potentially stained with the president’s blood.And a cufflink-style gold and onyx button with the letter “L” on it, which a doctor removed to check for Lincoln’s pulse as he lay on his deathbed, went for $445,000.The auction of the items from the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, which was conducted in person, online and by phone, raised nearly $7.9 million, the auctioneers said.The total included a 28 percent buyer’s premium, which auction houses tack onto the hammer price to help cover expenses from sales.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A New Frontier in Paleontology for Profit: Selling Shares in a Stegosaurus

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      As academics fear being priced out of the fossil market, a private company announced that it aims to raise $13.75 million by selling shares in a stegosaurus fossil.With dinosaur fossils fetching millions of dollars at recent auctions, it was perhaps inevitable: A private company said Friday that it had set the date for a public offering that will allow investors to buy shares in a stegosaurus fossil.It was the latest sign of the booming market for dinosaur fossils, which has raised concerns from academic paleontologists who fear their institutions are being priced out of the market by private collectors, jeopardizing their access to research specimens.Now a stegosaurus fossil that is still mostly buried in Wyoming is being transformed into an investment vehicle registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Rally, a company that sells shares in a wide variety of collectibles, said Friday that the stegosaurus would go public on Dec. 20, when 200,000 shares will be offered to investors at $68.75 each. The sale could raise up to $13.75 million, according to an S.E.C. filing. The company describes the sale as an initial public offering, but the shares will only be sold through its app or on its website, not on a stock market.Shareholders will hope for a payout on the dinosaur, nicknamed Steg, once it is sold privately or auctioned to the highest bidder in about a year, according to the company, which sells shares in alternative assets like designer cars, expensive artwork, baseball cards and a copy of the Declaration of Independence.“We took a risk,” said Rob Petrozzo, Rally’s co-founder and chief product officer. “We feel there is enough upside for investors to see a return.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ruby Slippers From ‘Wizard of Oz’ Sell for $28 Million at Auction

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      The slippers, worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz,” were stolen from the museum that bears her name in 2005 before investigators recovered them in 2018.The ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore as Dorothy in the 1939 production of “The Wizard of Oz” were sold for a record-breaking $28 million on Saturday during a live auction in Dallas in the latest turn for one of the most recognizable and storied artifacts in film history.Heritage Auctions sold the slippers on behalf of a collector, Michael Shaw, who owned them. The slippers — which sold for vastly more than the $10 million that the auction house’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, believed they would — are one of only four known surviving pairs worn by Ms. Garland in the movie.The auction house did not immediately disclose the identity of the buyer.“There is simply no comparison between Judy Garland’s ruby slippers and any other piece of Hollywood memorabilia,” Mr. Maddalena said.The final bid of $28 million was the largest sum spent at an auction for a piece of entertainment memorabilia, the auction house said. It exceeded the previous record-holder, Marilyn Monroe’s subway dress from the 1955 film “The Seven Year Itch,” which sold in 2011 for $5.52 million with fees, the auction house said. Including taxes and fees, the slippers sold for $32.5 million.During the auction, which was peppered with “Wicked” and “Wizard of Oz” references and puns, the auctioneer excitedly held a crouching position — like the Wicked Witch of the West in the story — as he pointed to people around the room, who called out bids in $100,000 increments. At times, a bidder, often on the phone with a client, would elevate the top bid by $800,000 or more, which garnered some stifled “ooohs” and “ahhhs” from attendees.The auction included other pieces of “Wizard of Oz” memorabilia. A Wicked Witch of the West hat worn by the actress Margaret Hamilton sold for nearly $3 million, the auction house said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rare Copy of U.S. Constitution Sells for More Than $11 Million

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      The document, which was sold to an anonymous bidder at an auction in North Carolina, was among the first copies of the Constitution ever printed, experts said.A rare copy of the United States Constitution that was printed shortly after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and played a role in the document’s adoption by the original 13 states sold for more than $11 million during a live auction on Thursday evening.The high bid, from a buyer whose identity was not disclosed, was $9 million. That does not include the buyer’s premium of 23 percent or the taxes, which were not disclosed.The sale was handled by Brunk Auctions, which is based in Asheville, N.C. Bidding began at $1.1 million but quickly jumped to $5 million. It took just over seven minutes before the bidding closed at $9 million, said Nancy Zander, director of external affairs for Brunk Auctions.“It was a spectacular price,” Ms. Zander said in an interview Friday night. “It’s really important that important things get strong prices.”The copy of the Constitution was found two years ago in a filing cabinet in the house at Hayes, a farm once owned by Samuel Johnston, who served as governor of North Carolina from December 1787 to December 1789. The document’s discovery garnered national attention for being an early copy of the document and for the role it played in the document’s ratification.After the Constitutional Convention and after Congress added a ratification resolution, copies were sent to the governors of the original 13 states, who then gauged interest among their residents. Among those copies was the one sold on Thursday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rudy Franchi, Who Put Movies at the Center of a Technicolor Life, Dies at 85

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      He brought French classics to New York, published a film magazine, worked as a Hollywood publicist and (as seen on “Antiques Roadshow”) thrived selling vintage posters and kitsch.Rudy Franchi, who during a kaleidoscopic life brought French films to New York City, indulged in trysts with Hollywood stars as a publicist, operated one of the country’s largest vintage movie poster businesses and appraised ephemera — most memorably, a lunch menu from the Titanic — on PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow,” died on Aug. 6 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 85.The cause of his death, at a nursing home, was lung cancer that had metastasized, his family said.Mr. Franchi’s life was highbrow, lowbrow and sometimes surreal.Along with movie posters, his store, the Nostalgia Factory, dealt in kitsch — Mickey Mouse watches, British cookie tins, StarKist “Charlie the Tuna” piggy banks. His career included a stint at a tabloid newspaper fabricating stories, like one that claimed that President John F. Kennedy was living secretly (though comatose) on an island after his assassination.“Rudy was definitely a character,” Grey Smith, a longtime vintage poster appraiser and dealer, said in an interview. “He was fascinating to be around because he had all of these crazy stories, and he could really talk about anything.”Mr. Franchi was not a gadfly, per se, but he was the sort of person whose name was familiar in the letters-to-the-editor departments of newspapers, especially The New York Times. It published six of the many missives he sent in on topics like the foreign exchange rates of American Express traveler’s checks, a critique of Playbill magazine and a brief history of neon signs.In a 2010 episode of “Antiques Roadshow,” Mr. Franchi appraised a grizzly bear skin that its owner said had once belonged to Bette Davis. The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cover Art for ‘Harry Potter’ Sold at Auction for $1.92 Million

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      The watercolor was painted in 1996 by a recent art school graduate from Britain who was working at a bookstore. He was paid $650.The original cover art for the first edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” sold for $1.92 million at auction on Wednesday, becoming the most expensive item related to the series, decades after its illustrator was paid a commission of just $650.The watercolor painting, which depicts the young wizard Harry going to Hogwarts from Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross station, was part of the private library of an American book collector and surgeon, Dr. Rodney P. Swantko, whose other rare items were auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York this week.The year before the novel came out in 1997, its publisher, Bloomsbury, hired a 23-year-old from England who had just graduated from art school to design the book jacket, the auction house said. The artist, Thomas Taylor, would go on to establish the world’s conception of Harry Potter, with his iconic round glasses and lightning bolt scar.“It’s kind of staggering, really,” he said about the sale of his painting in an interview on Thursday. “It’s exciting to see it fought over.”Mr. Taylor was working at a children’s bookstore when he submitted sample drawings of wizards and dragons for the publisher in London to review, he said in a 2022 podcast interview. When he was selected, he said, “I was over the moon.”The cover was Mr. Taylor’s first professional assignment. And, at the time, “J.K. Rowling was as unknown as I was,” he wrote in his blog, referring to the novel’s British author.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Collectors Line Up in London as King Charles Bank Notes Are Released

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      A steady stream of people lined up at the Bank of England on Wednesday to get what they hoped would be collector’s items: the first bank notes featuring the portrait of King Charles III.Bank notes can still be exciting in our increasingly cashless society.On Wednesday morning, in front of the Bank of England headquarters, a queue — that’s a British line, which is the same as an American line but more orderly — formed, as people walked out with collector’s items: the first bills with King Charles III’s portrait on them.In the queue were avid coin collectors, people with nostalgic feelings toward the new bank note (the first in their lifetime showing a new monarch) and the odd tourist who happened to need old money changed.The bank has issued 5, 10, 20 and 50 pound bills with the new designs, which are similar in color scheme to the bills in circulation with Queen Elizabeth II on them. Bills with the Queen’s portrait on them will remain in circulation across the country, alongside the ones with King Charles.Although Brits are accustomed to seeing the monarch on their money, it wasn’t always the case. The Bank of England began printing bank notes in 1725, but it was not until 1960 that bills featured the monarch. Until that time, Britannia — the personification of Britain — had been the only character on the bills.The modest but steady line moved along swiftly on Wednesday, with people spending no more than 20 minutes to exchange their money.An orderly line outside the Bank of England headquarters in central London, on Wednesday.Claire Moses/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lifelong ‘Star Trek’ Fan Leaves Behind a Massive Trove of Memorabilia

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      Troy Nelson and his younger brother Andrew were almost inseparable.The two youngest of six, they were born two years apart. They lived together in their childhood home in Bremerton, Wash., for more than half a century. Near their home, there is a park bench on which they carved their initials as young boys.The Nelson brothers never married or had children. They worked together at the same senior home. They even once, as teenagers, dated the same girl at the same time while working different shifts at the same pizza shop. This lasted a week until they realized it.“Two parts of one body,” Evan Browne, their older sister, said of their relationship in an interview.On Feb. 28, Andrew Nelson, who had been treated for cancer for years, went to feed the chickens and ducks that were gifts from Ms. Browne to her brothers. He had a heart attack and died. He was 55. Just hours later, Troy Nelson, who was stricken with grief, took his own life. He was 57.“He had talked about it before,” Browne, 66, said, tearfully. “He said, ‘Hey, if Andrew goes, I’m out of here. I’m checking out.’ Andrew would say the same thing, and then it really happened.”The collection of “Star Trek” memorabilia left by Mr. Nelson is among the largest known, according to the president of a nonprofit that focuses on the franchise.Connie Aramaki for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More