Inside the Stephen Sondheim Auction That Stunned Even the Auctioneer

[MezzA101]

Posted: 6/22/24 at 10:53am

The auction house thought these thesauruses were worth $300. They underestimated the nerdiness of theater kids.

 

https://slate.com/culture/2024/06/stephen-sondheim-auction-tonys-merrily-we-roll-along.html

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/24/24 at 12:00am

The provided link does not work but if one copies it into their browser it does. And it is worth doing that because the subject line here (copied from the Slate piece headline) is inaccurate as is the (also copied here) subheading of the piece.

The first thing we do is, let's kill all the headline writers.

In fact the interviewee from the auction house said that it is "not unusual" for attention grabbers to blow up the bidding by overbidding like that. Likewise, because the idiot who paid $20k for the thesauruses was the only bidder, we have no idea what "theatre kids" (whether nerdy or not) would have paid because only one person (over)bid.

I am disappointed in Slate. I hold them to a higher standard than this board.