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American Auctions were rare in the GDR. They would have made sense, pretty much everything was close. Once we wanted to auction a few folklore souvenirs from Africa in the FDJ camp, we had chosen the “American auction” system for this, always a Markin the hat, whoever throws in the last one gets the “award”. American! That wouldn’t work at all, we were told. So we called the whole thing “Auction for Peace and Friendship” and the thalers fell into the top hat, ideologically harmless, but American. Once a year there was a solidarity bazaar for journalists on Alexanderplatz, and auctions of rare items for a good cause were a highlight. At the booth of Berlin newspaper there was ceramics by Hedwig Bollhagen, licensed records by Bob Dylan and once even a car that a tool dealer from Pankow had donated. A rare pre-war small van on three wheels. The last bid was high, at that time we could have auctioned off any car with the highest bidder. Even without wheels. Tony Heineman
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Ebay “Have fun bidding.” This prompt is spot on. Bidding on Ebay is a thrill, a welcome change, especially for people who are always at the computer anyway. Desire for an abundance of goods: The online marketplace founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, then under the name AuctionWeb, offers everything your heart desires. Anyone can buy or sell, at the highest bid, which is often well below what would otherwise be paid and then just below what sellers hoped for. They are compensated with a clear conscience (➝ American) because they have used what they no longer need. It’s a game: first you have to put something on the watch list and then you must not miss placing a bid exactly at the end of the auction. Made it? Hooray! Outbid? Also no problem. I admit: it used to be my favorite pastime. Now I have so many blazers in my closet that I really should put them back on Ebay. Irmtraud Gutschke
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Franz Marc the foxes by Franz Marc will soon change hands again. Shortly after the restitution by the city of Düsseldorf in January 2022 to the heirs of the former Jewish owner Kurt Grawi, the painting – an icon of Cubism created in 1913 – is now being auctioned off. The small animal painting in oil, which was previously on display in the municipal museum Kunstpalast, shows two red foxes in cubist-dynamic coexistence. The auction at Christie’s in London on March 1 also promises to be dynamic: the value of the painting is estimated at over 40 million euros (➝ Value). “This is an image that will be hunted by the world’s greatest collectors,” said Christie’s CEO Jussi Pylkkänen. Not for half a century has Marc’s work of this magnitude gone under the hammer. Marc Peschke
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Garage In the USA there are around 185 million square meters of so-called self-storage areas, i.e. garages in which a wide variety of furniture is stored. If there is no rent for the parking space for three months, the hour has come for professional auction sellers and the contents of the parking space, which can only be viewed briefly, are auctioned off. Next to Cash for Rares belong the Storage Wars on a small TV station is now one of my favorite shows. The incomprehensibly lightning-fast singsong of the auctioneers, with which the bids are driven up, is fascinating, and finally, about the objects left behind, the insight into an unclichéd American life. From worthless bric-a-brac to billiard tables, you’ll find everything. The bidders, who are also professional, bring the items when it is unclear ➝ Value to experts and sometimes experience big surprises. Historical guns worth $2,000, or a contract signed by Elvis Presley that turns out to be a fake. Marc Ottiker
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Hacksilber In the past, the exchange value of precious metals corresponded to the metal value. Therefore, in the pre-coin times, people simply paid with pieces of metal, such as so-called hack silver. This consisted of crushed silver objects such as jewellery, but could also be a silver band twisted into a spiral. You simply broke off or chopped off pieces of the appropriate weight. Hacksilver was used in ancient Egypt and Greece, in northern Europe it was in use in the British Isles and in the Baltic Sea region up to the tenth century. The beautiful word “verscherbeln” comes from a similar usage. Around 1500, a scherf was a small coin worth half a pfennig. Because it was so small, one-sherf coins were rarely minted, rather those of six or more shearf. If you wanted to pay, you broke off parts of the coin. These even had predetermined breaking points to make cutting them up easier. With these “shards” you could buy inexpensive goods, which the dealer – formerly known as a “höker” – “sell” or “peddled”. For “an apple and an egg” you got everyday goods, because apples and eggs were widely available and a common medium of exchange. Tobias Pruwer
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moon prices Batman or Superman? $3.2 or $3.4 million? The sources are somewhat confusing. What is certain, however, is that there are well-funded fans who will dig deep into their pockets for a well-preserved comic book from 1939. At the Texas auction house Heritage, moon prices for rare waste paper are not uncommon. What used to be ten cents over the counter can now be worth millions. Record sums are paid primarily for those issues in which popular superheroes made their debut. Lovers of tragicomic characters like Donald Duck get off cheaper. The most expensive was the first edition of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories (1940). The hammer fell at a paltry $116,000. And the number 1 of the Germans Mickey Mouse from 1951 can be had for a few thousand euros. But the market for antiquarian periodicals has its pitfalls. Just a few years ago, early issues of the legendary youth magazine “Twen” fetched up to 100 euros on ➝ Ebay. Old “Bravo” magazines were also popular. But the nostalgic seem to have completed their collections in the meantime. If they haven’t died. At the last check, a whole stack of 1960sbraves almost 25 euros offered. Joachim Feldman
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pure enhanced It might have been The Man Who Sold the World, as Kurt Cobain sang: “Oh no, not me.” Tenderly. And cool. I had to have the CD: Nirvanas MTV Unplugged in New York. I went to Saturn at Alexanderplatz in 1994. And just took her with me. An acquaintance had said: You have to steal Nirvana. Like a novel by Marguerite Duras. I knew it didn’t beep in the basement. But suddenly at the exit. I ran, then I was taken into custody. Because of “risk of escape”. It was a time when rules were just an option for us. Children of the Wende like me shared the big black hole with Kurt Cobain (➝ Man of Pain). At least that’s what I imagined. The police first took the CD, then my fingerprints. At the Unplugged concert in New York, Cobain played a Martin acoustic electric guitar that he bought used for $5,000. His daughter inherited it after his death. After the divorce, she went to her ex-husband. In 2020, it sold for $6 million, becoming the most expensive guitar ever to change hands at auction. She became a commodity. Just like his music. And himself. Maxi linen purchase
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man of sorrows At the end of January, a competition between three bidders raged at Sotheby’s for a portrait of Jesus by Sandro Botticelli. Eventually, one was accepted, and the Renaissance painting changed hands for $45.4 million. Botticelli’s late work received little attention for a long time – although only a few of the painter’s works have survived. the man of sorrows shows an enigmatic Jesus. The crossed hands are tied, the crown of thorns is on the head. A mixture of amazement, endurance and serenity speaks from the look. The Suffering Christ is a mystical work.
A decade ago, the term “pain man” (➝ Reingesteigert) served as a label for a rather lame gender role discussion. A “Zeit” author judged that a new type of singer-songwriter had entered the world stage. A new inwardness would have seized these men with beards and longer hair. According to the author, what comes across as thoughtful and poetic is nothing more than the softie, only in a new look. These mild fellows are terribly unsexy, and no matter how complicated they are. She just wanted to be taken by storm and kissed. Whether such fashions seems Botticellis man of sorrows to flicker a smile across your face – a very relaxed one. Tobias Pruwer
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value Measuring monetary value is a difficult matter. The prices for Rolex watches are currently reaching unforeseen, risky heights. But where there is height, there is also height of fall. Is this all real? For example, some paintings are believed to have come from the hand of the brilliant Wolfgang Beltracchi. It was blown because of a color that hadn’t existed at the time it was made. That was bad luck, but shows the relativity of the actual value. Meanwhile, prices for art at auction can reach unimagined heights in the tens of millions. Are these works worth it? Material value is created by immaterial emotional assignment to an object (➝ moon prices). When the herd instinct, greed and desire to dominate possessors take hold, you have the auction of superlatives. Gerhard Richter is said to have painted a fortune of 700 million. In the meantime, congratulations! The best way to learn about the insane art circus is in Nathaniel Kahn’s documentary The Price of Everything know – and no, this is not fiction. Jan C. Behmann
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foreclosures They are usually the end point of a long, dramatic story. Divorce, illness or unemployment force those affected into insolvency. Over-indebtedness threatens, and bankruptcy. Millions of homes went under the hammer during the US bank collapse. The procedure takes quite a long time. Sometimes a remedy can still be fought for if one succeeds in restoring the creditworthiness, taking the sale of the property into one’s own hands, finding procedural errors that can stop the process. In most cases, the ball continues to roll in the direction of eviction. Even if communities of heirs cannot agree on a property, foreclosure is often the ultima ratio. Magda Geisler