Generally, when one hears news of a world record being broken, and of course topped, Ripley’s and former Superman, Dean Cain come to mind. However, just the other day a different kind of world record was set; one that has a little more class than ‘longest jump on a dirt bike.’ Last Tuesday night, the auction for Elizabeth Taylor’s elaborate jewelry collection took place and needless to say, not one single auction has ever made that much money. Now the bigger question, how much money was accumulated from the sale of her jewelry estate? Take a deep breath – the Elizabeth Taylor auction brought in over 115 million dollars, which is well over the amount that the former record holder made. Previous to the now famous Liz Taylor auction, was the 1987 Geneva auction held by the Duchess of Windsor; auctioning her private jewelry collection brought in over 50 million dollars. A fun fact about the two auctions and their vague relation; Liz Taylor actually purchased the Prince of Wales brooch from the Duchess of Windsor, and that one piece of fine jewelry sold for over 1.3 million dollars on Tuesday!
As Elizabeth Taylor was quite an icon in the worlds of fashion, jewelry, cinema, and even relationships (she was married a number of times), it was only right that prior to the auctions first call, a short video from the 1960’s was played. In the video, Liz is sunbathing while speaking with Richard Burton over the telephone. Richard is inevitably at a jewelry auction on Liz’s behalf and she tells him, “Darling, it sounds like things are going for ten times their [estimated] price, Holy cow.” Following that statement, Liz does what most would consider to be the unthinkable, she tells him to buy it all!
With Liz’s fabulous life now only left to memory and a number of films and photographs, all the buyers of her jewels will carry on a bit of her, along with those that will benefit from a portion of the auctions’ proceeds going to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
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