Simpson’s Heisman Fetches $230,000
Once, when people said they had investments, it meant they owned maybe some land out at the lake, or a portfolio of blue-chip stocks and gilt-edged bonds. Then came junk bonds, Beanie Babies and Internet stocks.
Any more, with Furbies being sold for hundreds of dollars and baseball cards for thousands, it’s hard to tell what is valuable, and especially what is not.
Witness the events of Tuesday evening, when the world of loony collecting reached a sort of apex in Hollywood, when everything in an auction of items from O.J. Simpson’s estate brought in more than expected.
The occasion was a court-ordered auction of sports memorabilia, furniture and bad art seized from Simpson to begin satisfying a $33.5-million wrongful death judgment against him.
Simpson’s 1968 Heisman Trophy led the sale, going to an anonymous East Coast collector for $230,000, plus commission. An additional $200,000 was spent on 90 or so other items.
The money will go to the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Simpson was acquitted of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and Goldman, but was later found liable for their deaths in civil court.
Tuesday’s auction, conducted under the bright lights of two-dozen television crews and other media from around the world, was held to help pay that bill. Louis H. Brown, Nicole’s father, attended the sale.
It was an odd affair. The sale of Simpson’s awards, art work, a fur stole, plaques from various sports and civic institutions and some household furnishings, were sandwiched between unrelated auctions of old movie posters and Hollywood memorabilia including such items as Harry Houdini’s wrist shackles.
The sale was held at the Los Angeles showroom of Butterfield & Butterfield, a traditional auction house, but bidding also was allowed by telephone and over the Internet. It was billed as one of the first large-scale, live-Internet auctions.
As intended, the confluence of Simpson’s notoriety and the inclusion of the Internet bidding caused a sort of zoning change in the global village, bringing together groups of people who ordinarily occupy separate cultural continents: sports memorabilia collectors, Web-surfing addicts, fine-art auctioneers and, most weirdly, anti-government protesters.
The protesters, from a group that calls itself ShadowGov.com, bought several items, the certificate proclaiming Simpson’s admission to the Pro Football Hall of Fame among them. They announced afterward they would destroy the items on the Los Angeles County Courthouse steps today.
“We’re letting our criminal justice system know it’s a complete failure,” said Bob Enyart of Denver, a radio talk-show host and spokesman for the group.
One of the items the group purchased, a ceremonial bowl, will be smashed and made into a knife stamped with the words, “O.J. did it,” Enyart said.
The auction lot had a wide-ranging, ragtag quality to it. Some items, the golf equipment for example, were not particularly rare or valuable. You could find a like collection of used clubs and bags in the recycling bin of a municipal golf course.
On the other hand, said Martin Dalen, a Michigan collector who flew to Los Angeles specifically for the sale, “How often does a Heisman come on the market? The answer is never.”
Value is classically a function of scarcity, and Simpson’s Heisman is as scarce as things get--there’s only one. This was one reason Dalen had a lot of company Tuesday night. That, plus the Internet.
Organizers said tens of thousands of people bid via the Web. Only four items were purchased by them, but collectors said their presence drove prices beyond expected levels.
