3-24-13
Napoleon and Josephine's engagement ring sells for $949,000
Breaking Newstags: Napoleon, engagement ring, Josephine, ABC
The engagement ring the young Napoleon "must have broken his wallet" to buy for his fiancee Josephine shattered expectations today at the Osenat auction house in France when it sold for close to $1 million, Osenat's expert Jean-Christophe Chataignier said.
The winning bidder, who wanted to stay completely anonymous, paid $949,000, almost 50 times the $20,000 Osenat had expected to bring in. Including the buyer's 25 percent commission to Osenat, the total price for the ring was $1.17 million.
"In my wildest dreams, I did not think we would outsell the estimate by more than 47 times," said Osenat's Emily Villane, who led today's auction. "We based the estimates in our catalog on the actual market value of the ring, minus Napoleon and Josephine provenance. It is not our job to tell bidders how much they should pay for the historical premium."...
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Haitian Americans Reclaim the Traditions of Vodou from Centuries of Misperception
- DeSantis Proposes Surveying Students, Faculty on Political Views
- Philly Plan for Tubman Memorial Draws Fire: Were Black Artists Excluded?
- One Absurdity of Texas's Divisive Concepts Law? Call to Rename Slave Trade as "Involuntary Relocation"
- 3 Law Profs: Connecting Abortion and Voting Rights at SCOTUS
- If "Heathen" Sounds Outdated, Historian Kathryn Gim Lum Says it Still Explains Racism in America
- How The Court Just Changed America
- The Crisis Historian Has Bad News About the Crisis
- Joint OAH-AHA Statement on Dobbs Decision
- Academics Worry Florida's Academic Legislation is Coming to the Rest of the Nation