- Shiny Thing$
- Posts
- SHINY THING$ 0184 ✨
The divide between “comfortable” money and truly transformative wealth is stretching faster than most of us can track.
Sure, the headline stats are jaw‑dropping — America’s 19 richest households added another $1 trillion to their wealth in the past year — but the subtler signals live where we focus: the collectible and heritage‑luxury markets.
Over the last week alone, a handful of auctions and asset purchases turned into bare‑knuckle bidding wars, the kind where ego fuels every incremental bid… “If you want it, I need it…price be damned.”
What does that frenzy mean for the future of wealth, or for the average collector’s access to iconic assets? The verdict isn’t in yet, but one thing is clear: in the hunt for the rarest trophies, deep pockets and the wealthiest brands are widening the lead.
The tale of this weeks tape 👇
The $7.5M Lamp
The new record for most valuable work by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright is no longer a house, but instead a one-of-two double-pedestal lamp that he created for a residential home.
At Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction this past Tuesday, after a heated 11-minute battle between bidders, the lamp from the Susan Lawrence Dana House (built by Lloyd Wright in 1902) hammered for $7.5 million - 4X higher than its last sale in 2002. The iridescent lamp that actually resembles a home by the late architect more than doubled his previous record for most-valuable-work within his portfolio.
Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s head of 20th century design said it’s “a true testament to [Frank Lloyd Wright’s] genius, the lamp stands as a beacon of the American pursuit of design, innovation and progress that reflects Wright’s lasting influence on American architecture and culture.”
Overall, the sale which included art and objects had some misses, but still printed $186.4 million total with buyer’s premium across 60 lots. While the high end of the art market has been cooling in recent years, the fresh-to-market and rarest examples are still creating frenzies amongst the super-wealthy. Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Leaves of a Plant,” had 30 bids, selling for $13 million (well above its $8 million to $12 million estimate). Blue chip never-before-auctioned items are still bringing out the big buyers.
Polo Buy$ the Block
Sometimes you gotta just take the whole building.
If you’ve ever been in Soho here in NYC, you’re familiar with the corner spot at 109 Prince Street, which has housed the Ralph Lauren flagship store for over two decades. The brand and its decabillionaire owner of the same name have been renting the space ever since they moved in in 2010, but it quietly “became available for purchase” just recently.
The price: $132,000,000.
How it got there: LVMH, who one could consider a competitor to Ralph Lauren, made a bid just below that price in an attempt to relocate their jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co to the highly visible Soho corner. While it’s unclear how much LVMH offered in their losing bid, when Lauren found out he came over the top and locked in the purchase — even after blowing tens of millions of dollars on rent for the location since the initial lease for the 4,700 sq ft space was signed.
Madison $quare Garden
While the Knicks fanbase is historically one of the most loyal in the NBA, its likely no longer “the real fans” flooding Madison Square Garden for home games during this years playoff run.
The New York Knicks went into last Saturday’s game against the Boston Celtics with a 2-0 lead in their best of seven series after back to back improbable comeback wins in Boston’s TD Garden arena. That set the table for one of the most highly anticipated games in Madison Square Garden history, and with that came one of the most expensive tickets in Knicks history.
By mid-week, with the average sale price for Saturday’s Game 3 ticket was an insane $1,956 according to secondary market data with the most expensive listing being a $109,932 courtside seat. The cheapest ticket in the house was $628 for section 413 (the real nosebleeds). According to the TickPick online marketplace, the game 3 Knicks vs. Celtics was the most expensive Knicks home game since they began tracking data in 2011.
Game 6 of the series, which took place on Friday night at MSG in New York, did it’s best to take the most-expensive title, but as of Friday at 5:30PM there was far more inventory available than there was for the last 2 homes games (game 3 and 4) with a get-in price hovering right around $596 on secondary sites.
As one user on Reddit put it “the die hard fans got to see the 2004-2020 years in person and now… the bandwagon rich fans and corporations bringing clients get to watch.”
The Knicks haven’t been in the Eastern Conference Finals since 2000, and they haven’t reached the NBA Finals since 1999, so if they keep going we are likely to see the “most expensive” ticket broken multiple times over throughout May and possibly June.
Church vs. $tate
Almost as soon as the papal ink was dry on the election of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, Topps released their Pope trading card set to celebrate (and print some free money).
They framed the release as a “100,000+ Print Run” of the official Pope trading card, including various one-offs and limited of/25, of/10, and of/5 editions, with a base price of $8.99 for a single card. By end of day Sunday, the holiest of days in the catholic religion, the entire run was sold out with 133,535 cards sold — an all-time record for any non-sports Topps Now card netting the manufacturer well in excess of $1M for the one-day drop.
In related news, Pope Leo was seen on video signing a baseball for a fan in Vatican City, where he apparently confirmed he is indeed a White Sox fan.
Until Next Week…