Monroe Tchotchkes Sell at a Premium

Sales at the two-day auction in New York City of Marilyn Monroe’s personal property--from her driver’s license to her glamorous dresses--topped $13.4 million. Bids on the second day again soared above preauction estimates at Christie’s auction house. A traveling makeup case with a presale estimate of between $1,000 and $1,500 sold for $266,500, the highest price among more than 500 lots for the day. The case and makeup was sold to Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Other high bids included $145,500 for a temporary driver’s license issued to Monroe in California in 1956, also purchased by Ripley’s, and $90,500 for the certificate of Monroe’s conversion to Judaism, signed by Monroe and her third husband, Arthur Miller.