Auction Block

An 18th century Chinese bowl fetched a record $9.5 million at a Sotheby's auction. The Ruby-Ground Double-Lotus "falangcai" bowl sold Monday to Hong Kong antiques dealer William Chak after 11 bids. The price surpassed pre-sale estimates of about $9 million to set the record for Chinese Kangxi ceramics. The Qing Dynasty bowl wrapped in lotus flowers is thought to be one of the earliest imperial ceramics made with Western enameling techniques. ART: Can you guess the high price?

An 18th century Chinese bowl fetched a record $9.5 million at a Sotheby's auction. The Ruby-Ground Double-Lotus "falangcai" bowl sold Monday to Hong Kong antiques dealer William Chak after 11 bids. The price surpassed pre-sale estimates of about $9 million to set the record for Chinese Kangxi ceramics. The Qing Dynasty bowl wrapped in lotus flowers is thought to be one of the earliest imperial ceramics made with Western enameling techniques. ART: Can you guess the high price?

As a celluloid heartthrob, Robert Taylor donned western boots and jeans to portray a gunslinger in "Billy the Kid" and a lawman in "The Hangman. " He dressed the same off-screen to ride horses on his 112-acre ranch in Mandeville Canyon. Taylor died in 1969, but the Brentwood ranch, with its 12-bedroom house, guest quarters, rolling lawns and wooded hillsides, still bears his name. The estate, extensively remodeled in the 1980s by a rock-radio mogul who turned the stables into offices and apartments while leaving the horseshoe-studded stall doors intact, is slated to be sold at auction Nov. 30. A number of parties have toured the Robert Taylor Ranch, one of the largest residential properties on the Westside and recently listed by Hilton & Hyland at just under $19 million.

North Londoners are furious over a missing Banksy mural that was torn off a building in the Wood Green neighborhood of the city and has since resurfaced online at Fine Art Auctions Miami .  The high-profile mural features a young boy on his knees, hunched over a sewing machine and stitching Union Jack bunting. It went up last May on the wall of a Poundland department store in advance of June's Diamond Jubilee Celebration for Queen Elizabeth II. According to the Guardian, it's considered a commentary condemning child labor.  The mural -- which was a popular draw to the neighborhood, attracting locals and tourists alike -- is now titled "Banksy Slave Labor (Bunting Boy)

The auctioneer gazed out at the audience, knowing this was the moment they'd waited for. Next up, he said, was lot No. 23 -- a "wonderful, exceptional, 66-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Samson." He gestured to the ferocious-looking skull sitting on a stand to his left. "There she is," he said. The people who had gathered in the elegant gallery at the Venetian hotel gasped. Samson is one of the three most complete T. rex specimens ever discovered, possessing the most intact skull in existence.

The Green Hornet, a storied Shelby Mustang prototype that many pony car enthusiasts assumed was destroyed decades ago, will come up for auction early next year. The Barrett-Jackson auction house will sell the car at its Scottsdale auction on Jan. 19. The Shelby “represents a rolling history of what Ford and Shelby American, the auto-design firm owned by Carroll Shelby, were producing in the heyday of the American muscle-car era and is considered one of the most innovative and unique vehicles of its time,” said Craig Jackson, chief executive  of Barrett-Jackson and the current owner of the car. It is expected to sell for about $2 million.

The piano on which Sam (Dooley Wilson) played the haunting love song "As Time Goes By" in the 1942 Oscar-winning movie classic "Casablanca" is going on the auction block. Sothebys in New York will put the iconic instrument up for sale on Dec. 14. The auction house believes the piano could fetch up to $1.2 million. The Japanese collector who is offering the instrument bought it at a 1988 Sotheby's auction for $154,000. "Casablanca," which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as lovers Rick and Isla, celebrated the 70th anniversary of its New York premiere Monday.

Anyone want to buy a bloody sock? A lot of people in Boston probably do. Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is selling the blood-stained sock he wore during the 2004 World Series. Chris Ivy, director of sports for Texas-based Heritage Auctions, says online bidding begins Feb. 4. Live bidding will take place Feb. 23. He said the sock could get at least $100,000. “I do expect the bidding to be very spirited,” Ivy told the Associated Press. The sock had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Orange County Fairgrounds was placed on the auction block Thursday in an attempt to cut into the state deficit. The state Department of General Services issued a request for proposals for the 150-acre property in Costa Mesa, giving bidders until Jan. 8 to make offers. Earlier this year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed liquidating state properties -- including the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, San Quentin State Prison and three state-owned fairgrounds -- to raise cash to help balance the state budget.

The red carpets are rolled out at the Anaheim Convention Center as more than 800 muscle cars, classic vehicles and hot rods cross the auction block during a three-day event that begins Thursday. Mecum Auction Inc. will sell off millions of dollars worth of autos. Gates at the convention center open at 8 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Tickets are available at the gates for $15 per person. Children younger than 12 get in free. Bring a checkbook, though. The rare cars, some of which have been featured on the covers of glossy magazines, run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Former St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner's six-bedroom home will go on the auction block on Feb. 27 after the Super Bowl champion got tired of waiting for it to sell. He moved into a bigger house in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 2011 and has been trying to sell his former home ever since. The house is expected to be sold for about $5 million. The 11,000-square-foot home boasts six bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms, as well as a home theater, billiard room, massage room, table tennis room, in-ground trampoline and a 62-foot pool with an overhead waterfall.

Anyone want to buy a bloody sock? A lot of people in Boston probably do. Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is selling the blood-stained sock he wore during the 2004 World Series. Chris Ivy, director of sports for Texas-based Heritage Auctions, says online bidding begins Feb. 4. Live bidding will take place Feb. 23. He said the sock could get at least $100,000. “I do expect the bidding to be very spirited,” Ivy told the Associated Press. The sock had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

If your pockets run as deep as your love for the Corvette, you might want to find yourself in Scottsdale, Ariz. this weekend.   That's where Barrett-Jackson will auction off the first production model of the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. This seventh-generation of the iconic American sports car made its world debut amid a media frenzy at this week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit.   The new, seventh-generation Corvette will likely start at about $50,000 when it goes on sale later in 2013.

A baseball card from 1865 uncovered at a yard sale in Maine could fetch six figures on the auction block, a report says. A man browsing the sale picked up a photo album with the card tucked inside in Baileyville, a town near the Canadian border, the Saco River Auction Co. told the Associated Press. Quiz: How well do you remember 2012? The 148-year-old card, which doesn't feature just one player like many modern versions, is a photo of the Brooklyn Atlantics amateur baseball team pasted onto a card.

A set of letters written by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to a secret lover in the late 1960s sold big at a London auction Wednesday, with a buyer dropping more than 187,250 pounds ($301,000) on the notes. The collection of 10 letters, dated from the summer of 1969 (when Jagger was just 25), were on the auction block at Sotheby's in London. Jagger's love notes were written to the American-born singer Marsha Hunt while he was in Australia filming "Ned Kelly. " Hunt, believed to be the inspiration for the band's 1971 hit "Brown Sugar," put the notes -- which included song lyrics and a Rolling Stones playlist -- up for sale because “the passage of time has given these letters a place in our cultural history,” according to t he Guardian newspaper.

The piano on which Sam (Dooley Wilson) played the haunting love song "As Time Goes By" in the 1942 Oscar-winning movie classic "Casablanca" is going on the auction block. Sothebys in New York will put the iconic instrument up for sale on Dec. 14. The auction house believes the piano could fetch up to $1.2 million. The Japanese collector who is offering the instrument bought it at a 1988 Sotheby's auction for $154,000. "Casablanca," which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as lovers Rick and Isla, celebrated the 70th anniversary of its New York premiere Monday.

From the rides of kings to a king of rock 'n' roll, auction house Gooding & Co. has scored a couple of notable entries for its annual auction at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in August. The Santa Monica seller of high-end collector cars will put up for auction a 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Stelvio once owned by Prince Louis Napoleon, the grandson of the nephew of Emperor Napoleon I of France and noted World War II resistance fighter. Although the prince was forbidden to live in France for much of his life because of former laws banning the top heirs of French dynasties from living in the nation, he was fond of French vehicles, especially Bugattis.

Sharper Image Corp. put itself up for sale, two months after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The retailer of high-end gadgets and appliances said a sale was the best route, in light of the weak U.S. economy and credit crunch. The company said it wanted to complete the sale by the end of May and would prepare for an auction as soon as possible.

Norma Shearer's silk sheets sat for years in a Los Angeles garage, with no one to admire the embroidered monogram: NST, for Norma Shearer Thalberg. The starlet's Louis Vuitton steamer trunks waited in vain to voyage. One was dedicated solely to protecting Shearer's shoes - some of its 30 leather-trimmed drawers still bearing hand-written labels like "silvered lizard sandal evening" and "gold kid sandal evening high heels. " This was Golden Age glamour. It was an auction house's dream.

The red carpets are rolled out at the Anaheim Convention Center as more than 800 muscle cars, classic vehicles and hot rods cross the auction block during a three-day event that begins Thursday. Mecum Auction Inc. will sell off millions of dollars worth of autos. Gates at the convention center open at 8 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Tickets are available at the gates for $15 per person. Children younger than 12 get in free. Bring a checkbook, though. The rare cars, some of which have been featured on the covers of glossy magazines, run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.