>>> The Most Expensive Ferrari Ever Sold: This 1962 330 LM/250 GTO

It brought $51,705,000 at RM Sotheby's New York sale.


Car and Driver

by Joe Lorio

Nov 14, 2023


https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45835118/1962-ferrari-250-gto-auction-record-price/






This car set a record for a Ferrari sale price at auction.

It's the only 1962 GTO campaigned by Scuderia Ferrari.

The auction took place at RM Sotheby's in New York on November 13, 2023.

There's a new most-expensive Ferrari and, yes, it's a 250 GTO. This 1962 example was just sold by RM Sotheby's for $51,705,000. This result eclipses former headline-making Ferrari sales, including a $48.4 million 250 GTO 2018 Monterey sale, an ex-Stirling Moss 1957 335S that brought $35.8 million in 2016, and a $38 million 250 GTO that sold in Monterey in 2014.





This latest car, which Sotheby's lists as a 330 LM/250 GTO, is the only 1962 GTO raced by Scuderia Ferrari. The car had its debut outing at the May 1962 Nürburgring 1000 KM, where it finished first in its class and second overall.





In response to a change in Le Mans rules for 1962, the original 3.0-liter engine was replaced by a 4.0-liter V-12 for the 24 Hours—and this is the only 250 GTO ever factory fitted with the larger 4.0-liter engine. Unfortunately, the car went off the track early in the race and later overheated and DNF'd.





The car was then sold to an Italian privateer, for whom Maranello swapped out the 4.0-liter engine for a 3.0-liter V-12, paired with a five-speed gearbox, and the car retains that powertrain to this day.

In 1967, the Ferrari found its way to the United States. It has been featured at events throughout the past decades while in the care of several long-term owners, including the seller, who has had the car for 38 years. All these factors no doubt worked to bolster the selling price.

<<<



---

Tech Crunch, in case you have not seen it>>>>>

https://techcrunch.com/

>> gold <<

Jim Rickards recommends having 10% of one's investable assets in gold, which seems like a reasonable idea, all things considered. The US debt is parabolic, and the global de-dollarization process is likely to intensify. Saudi Arabia is joining BRICS, so looks like the Petrodollar system will soon be history. For over 40 years the Petrodollar system was critical in maintaining global demand for the US dollar. It allowed the dollar to remain the world's reserve currency after the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971. So that underpinning for the dollar system will be going, going, gone. In addition, BRICS is rapidly expanding its membership, and is creating their own gold-linked BRICS currency - so another dagger pointed at the heart of the dollar system.

So based on how things are going, having some gold seems only prudent. But having some paid-for real estate and land seem like the best idea imo. Gold has no real 'utility' value, other than as jewelry. It only has a high value because of its historic role as a backing for money. But gold is the enemy of central banks like the Fed, who banned gold ownership in the US from 1933 - 1975. So best not to go too overboard with gold imo.

Silver is an alternative that tends to follow gold's price moves, and also has lots of industrial uses, including in solar panels. Unlike gold, there is no risk of the US govt banning private ownership of silver. So it seems logical to diversify with some silver, in addition to the gold and other hard assets, real estate / land, etc.

Stocks have actually been a great inflation hedge over the long haul, albeit with numerous crashes along the way. I figure it's best to diversify into all of these asset classes. Bonds / fixed income get hurt the most from inflation over long periods, so what seems 'safe' in the short run can actually be the worst overall choice for the long term. But still a lot better than speculating on microcap stocks. Look at what happened to BABYF, down to .19 cents, yikes. I figure that anything in the conservative investing realm is better than going down the microcap trading path again. Even with the discipline of strict position limits, the gunslinging approach is a loser.





---

Costco selling gold bars, just watch a TV ad for buying gold. Who is dumping it to Joe average?

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/27/costco-is-selling-gold-bars-and-they-are-selling-out-within-a-few-hours.html

What could go wrong with buying gold?
https://www.gold.org/official-institutions/central-bank-gold-agreement/historic-gold-agreements

>>> The world is running out of helium: Nobel prize winner

Pys.org

https://phys.org/news/2010-08-world-helium-nobel-prize-winner.html#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20chemical%20way,lightest%20element%20in%20the%20Universe.

A renowned expert on helium says we are wasting our supplies of the inert gas helium and will run out within 25 to 30 years, which will have disastrous consequences for hospitals and industry.

Professor of physics, Robert Richardson from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the 1996 Nobel prize for his work on superfluidity in helium, and has issued a warning the supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation.

Liquid helium is vital for its use in cooling the superconducting magnets in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners. There is no substitute because no other substance has a lower boiling point. Helium is also vital in the manufacture of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and fiber optics.

In MRI scanners the helium is recycled, but often the gas is wasted since it is thought of as a cheap gas, and as such is often used to fill party balloons and as a party trick distorting people's voices when it is inhaled.

Professor Richardson warned the gas is not cheap because the supply is inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatisation Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress. The Act required the helium stores held underground near Amarillo in Texas to be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo storage facility holds around half the Earth's stocks of helium: around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80 percent of the world's helium supplies.

Richardson said it has taken 4.7 billion years for the Earth to accumulate our helium reserves, which we will have exhausted within about a hundred years of the US's National Helium Reserve having been established in 1925. The reserve is a collection of disused underground mines, pipes and vats extending over 300 km from north of Amarillo into Kansas. He warned that when helium is released to the atmosphere, in helium balloons for example, it is lost forever.

There is no chemical way of manufacturing helium, and the supplies we have originated in the very slow radioactive alpha decay that occurs in rocks. It costs around 10,000 times more to extract helium from air than it does from rocks and natural gas reserves.

Helium is the second-lightest element in the Universe. Among helium's other uses include airships, air mixtures used in deep-sea diving, cooling nuclear reactors and infrared detectors, and in satellite and spacecraft equipment, and solar telescopes. NASA also uses massive amounts of helium to clean fuel from its rockets, and because the helium is so cheap, it makes no effort to recycle the gas. As the isotope helium-3, helium is also used in nuclear fusion research.

Professor Richardson was co-chair of a US National Research Council inquiry into the coming helium shortage. The report recommends the US reconsider its policy regarding selling off the helium.

<<<



---

Looks like Avanti is about to have a 'golden cross' on the chart, so a good sign. The chart doesn't look bad, and has put in a fairly convincing bottom since last Oct. The risk is that it might gradually dribble back down from the recent spike, similar to what happened in Jan.

Helium sounds like a promising area, though I'd have to do some research. The obvious red flags (OTC, microcap), but it might be a fun one to follow :o)



---

Helium Wars: Why Are Tech Giants Fighting Over This Rare Gas?

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Helium-Wars-Why-Are-Tech-Giants-Fighting-Over-This-Rare-Gas.html

Snippet:
A daunting list of key industries the world over is now wondering where their future supplies of helium will come from.

What battery metals are to gigafactories, helium is to everything from scientific research, medical technology and high-tech manufacturing to space exploration and national defense.

Avanti Helium Corp. (ARGYF) spec bet?

Avanti Helium Corp. acquires, explores, and develops helium projects in Canada and the United States. The company's principal project is its 100% owned Greater Knappen Project, which covers an area of approximately 70,140 acres located in the Southern Alberta and Northwestern Montana. The company was formerly known as Avanti Energy Inc. and changed its name to Avanti Helium Corp. in August 2022. Avanti Helium Corp. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ARGYF/?p=ARGYF

At the top of the PR I sent you it says in BOLD print and italics(saying, "pay attention to this"

Asset Sale is First Step of Previously Announced Strategic Review

My guess, the sale of the rice bran division was key to selling the rest of company. I believe they sold the worst of the company, but it could take years to get the stock up seeing to say $3. I'd take that now, seeing parts of the USA being intentionally destroyed for the "Greater Good", so called.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ricebran-technologies-sells-srb-business-110000770.html




:

"

Those NOLs could be valuable to an acquiring company, but if RIBT isn't sold then the NOLs aren't especially relevant, unless if the newly configured RIBT is soon showing profits, and then the NOLs would have a more immediate value. But the fact that RIBT mentioned the NOLs prominently in the press release does suggest the NOLs have significant value.

On the other hand, if a company is touting it's NOLs as a key source of company value, that doesn't say much for the company. Who knows, but bottom line, RIBT is probably better left to investors who specialize in distressed securities. That's actually how Warren Buffett started out (via Ben Graham), but it requires experience, a deep background in accounting, etc. GL with it, but don't 'bet the farm' :o)



---

There is a kicker with RIBT. They have tax losses carried forward, 54.4 million Fed and 46.0 million state. They started out in California for a couple of years, then Arizona for maybe 5 years, then Texas since. I am guessing the state NOLS got to be used by a buyer in one of those states when used. But the Fed of $54,400,000 divided by the 8,000,000 shares is worth $6.80 per share. But a less than 5% of the NOLS can be used per year. I don't know if they could get even 50% of the values, but take even 20% and you get an extra $1.30 for the sale price. Book is confusing, but I fell it is at least $1 after the sale of the bran business, so $2.30?

That is why I bought more

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ricebran-technologies-sells-srb-business-110000770.html

>> 2 less moderators now <<

Maybe replaced by AI :o)

Btw, nice to see RIBT up to the 200 MA. The chart is looking more promising, so a run to 1.50 coming?

With the better than expected inflation and economic numbers, the market's rally might continue for a while, until the July Fed meeting gets closer. In 3-4 weeks the 'Powell effect' returns, but maybe some market buoyancy until then.

Wildcards include Ukraine, and the possibility of that nuclear power plant being sabotaged. The Nord Stream pipeline was blown up, then the big hydroelectric dam blown up, so the nuke power plant might be next (?) Let's hope not.




---

I think iHub is losing business. Their new rules they just posted a couple of days ago are loosening up a bit. In the past if one posted too much politics, the board as made PAID. Now they just warned you. I heard they have 2 less moderators now compared to a while back.

Small stocks, especially pennies have been beaten down in the last 12 months. iHub's most active boards are micro cap stock boards. That maybe hurt them alot. People losing money don't post as much.

"All Things Food", paid?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/All-Things-Food-25432

>>> $108 Million Klimt Painting Breaks European Auction Record


Bloomberg

by James Tarmy


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/108-million-klimt-painting-breaks-european-auction-record/ar-AA1d8M3K





(Bloomberg) -- A portrait by Gustav Klimt sold for £85.3 million ($108.4 million) at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday, becoming the most valuable artwork to sell at auction in Europe. (The previous record was set in 2010, when Giacometti’s L'homme qui marche sold for £65 million in London.)

Carrying an unofficial estimate in the region of £65 million, the Klimt, Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan) was executed in 1917-1918 and carried an irrevocable bid, meaning a third party had guaranteed in advance to purchase the work for a predetermined sum. Thus, it was widely understood to be a record-setting work well in advance of the sale.

Nevertheless, 10 minutes of serious bidding pushed the piece well beyond its estimate. In reaching this final sum, the painting also set a record for Klimt at auction. The late artist’s global public record was previously set last November, when the estate of Paul Allen sold Klimt’s Birch Forest for $104.6 million.

Tuesday nights’ Klimt last appeared at auction in 1994, when it was purchased for $11.6 million at Sotheby’s in New York, meaning in the interim it has appreciated by roughly 834%.

<<<



---

>>> Rubens Painting Lost For 300 Years and Misidentified When Last Sold at Auction Will Star At Upcoming Sotheby’s Sale in London


https://news.artnet.com/market/lost-rubens-sothebys-london-2323078


Research and x-ray analysis revealed that the painting is far more important than previously thought.

A painting that lost its identity over the course of 300 years has now been re-affirmed as an important Old Master work and will be offered at a Sotheby’s sale in London in early July.

The painting in question is Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ Saint Sebastian Tended By Two Angels. It has an estimate of £4 million to £6 million ($5 million to $7.7 million).

The tale of the Rubens is a “classic” art mystery about a painting which, between leaving a prestigious Italian collection in the 1730s and then reappearing in Missouri in the 20th century, had lost all provenance for centuries. That mystery has now been solved.

Scholars and experts on the Sotheby’s team used X-rays to look beneath the surface of the painting, and recently confirmed that it is indeed a work by Rubens. Further, they discovered that it’s “the prime” version of another important work by the artist, which until very recently had been thought to be unique.

The painting had been last recorded in the collection of the artist’s Genovese patrons, the Spinola family, in the early 1730s. When the work resurfaced at auction 15 years ago, it was with an attribution to the French painter Laurent de la Hyre. At the time, it sold at Ivey-Selkirk, a St. Louis auction house, for $40,000, according to the Artnet Price Database. Though modest in comparison to the current estimate, that sum was still many multiples of the high $8,000 estimate.

Soon after that auction, it was identified as a Rubens composition, and scholars embarked on extensive research that ended up matching the canvas to a Rubens referenced in the wills and inventories of the Spinola family.

The painting was likely executed circa 1606-8 in Italy, or circa 1609-10 in Antwerp, although there is not complete scholarly consensus. Rubens’ close association with the Spinola family began when he was first in Genoa in 1604, and long outlasted his return to Antwerp in late 1608.

It’s likely that the painting was commissioned by Ambrogio Spinola (1594-1630), an Italian nobleman and military commander, with whom the artist enjoyed shared diplomatic, political and artistic interests, and who he painted several times. The first known record of the painting is in the will of Ambrogio’s son, Filippo Spinola in 1655, before it passed through successive generations of the family for eighty years. The trail went cold with the patron’s granddaughter Anna Spinola who was listed in 1731 as having inherited the painting.

Saint Sebastian Tended By Two Angels then passed out of the Spinola family and through the female line of descent via Anna Spinola, and became untraceable until its reappearance in the U.S. 230 years later, in a collection in Missouri in 1963. It was later acquired by the present owner in the aforementioned auction in 2008 as a painting by Laurent de la Hyre.

The highest-ever price achieved for a de la Hyre work at auction is €918,400 ($922,000) for Narcisse, sold at Artcurial Paris last fall. Meanwhile the record for a Rubens work at auction is £49.5 million ($76.5 million) for Massacre of the Innocents (1609-11), sold at Sotheby’s London in 2002.

The X-ray analysis also revealed additional secrets about the status of the painting as the prime version for another Rubens painting of the same subject that was held for centuries by the Italian Corsini family and now hangs at Galleria Corsini in Rome.

The artist made radical changes to the design as he painted the Spinola version, altering and tweaking the composition as he worked. For example, Saint Sebastian was first painted facing the opposite way, twisting to the left and with his right arm raised over his head. There was originally an arrow piercing his right thigh, and armor was a later addition to the work, painted on top of something else that Rubens scraped away. Meanwhile, x-ray analysis of the Corsini picture showed no significant changes at all, suggesting that it was executed afterwards, and once Rubens was satisfied with his design, according to Sotheby’s.

The discovery is “proof that even great artists’ names can be lost to history,” said George Gordon, Sotheby’s co-chairman of Old Master paintings worldwide. “Thankfully the fascinating detail revealed by scientific analysis, combined with meticulous research, and consideration by leading scholars, rightfully affirms the reattribution of this work to one of the greatest painters of his time, and shows us that there is still so much for us to discover, even about the artist’s best-known works.”

<<<



---

>>> Blackstone acquires International Gemological Institute


Reuters

5-21-23


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/blackstone-acquires-international-gemological-institute/ar-AA1btjJs?OCID=ansmsnnews11


MUMBAI (Reuters) - Private equity company Blackstone Inc said it has fully acquired the jewelry certification firm International Gemological Institute (IGI) from China's Fosun and the company's founding family.

Blackstone bought IGI, whose majority revenue and profits come from India, for about $530 million, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said on condition of anonymity.

A statement said Blackstone had purchased an 80% stake from Fosun and 20% from the Lorie family.

Blackstone declined to comment on the valuation.

In a statement later, Fosun said the total consideration of the disposal was $569.65 million.

Chairman Guo Guangchang said the disposal would "have a positive impact on the company's financial performance" and the deal would also enable the company to focus more resources on development strategies.

Founded nearly 50 years ago by the late Marcel Lorie, IGI has 29 laboratories and 18 schools of gemology in 10 countries. The majority of the laboratories are in India.

India's jewellery market was worth is $78.5 billion in the 2021 financial year and it is one of the world's biggest, though a significant portion is for export.

"IGI has spearheaded the certification of natural diamonds, lab-grown diamonds, and coloured stones, becoming a global market leader and providing confidence to manufacturers, retailers, and consumers around the world," Mukesh Mehta, a senior managing director in Blackstone Private Equity Group, said.

<<<



---

>>> California Couple Finds $10 Million in Buried Treasure in Their Yard

A California couple out on a walk with their dog found $10 million worth of gold rush-era coins, buried at the base of an old tree on their property.


The Atlantic

By Abby Ohlheiser

FEBRUARY 26, 2014


https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/02/california-couple-finds-10-million-buried-treasure-their-yard/358535/


A California couple out on a walk with their dog found $10 million worth of gold coins buried at the base of an old tree on their property. Presumably to avoid a miniature gold rush of treasure-seekers descending on their land, the couple has chosen to keep their names and exact location quiet. Instead, a firm specializing in gold coins announced the discovery on behalf of the family. Kagin's Inc. believes it could represent the "greatest buried treasure ever unearthed in the United States."

According to Kagin, the face value of the gold coins adds up to about $28,000, but their condition and rarity sent their expected value soaring. The 1,400-odd mint-condition coins date from 1847 to 1894 and come in denominations of $20, $10 and $5. Some of the individual coins in the collection are probably worth upwards of $1 million each. Until the California find, the biggest buried gold treasure haul in the U.S. was believed to be a 1985 discovery by construction workers in Tennessee. It sold for about $1 million, as The Los Angeles Times noted.

Understandably, the couple described the find as "surreal": they noticed the top of a rusty can buried in the ground, presumably uncovered by erosion. After digging up and opening the can to find the treasure inside, the couple went back to the same spot and found several more cans, all filled with gold. "I thought any second an old miner with a mule was going to appear," the husband of the anonymous couple added. There were few clues at the site as to who left tens of thousands of dollars buried under a tree.

The couple will sell most of the very valuable coins, of course. According to Kagin, they're planning to do that on Amazon through the online retailer's collectibles store.

<<<




---

>>> Why Leonardo da Vinci Used Eggs to Paint His Masterpieces


Daily Beast

by Tony Ho Tran

March 28, 2023


https://news.yahoo.com/why-leonardo-da-vinci-used-153532675.html?ncid=facebook_yahoomainf_js3jgx0vd5k


Sandro Botticelli
Italian painter (1445-1510)

Along with creating some of the most beautiful and famous works of art in Western history, the “Old Masters” such as Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Sandro Botticelli also have another thing in common: they loved using eggs in their paintings.

More specifically, the artists would mix in egg yolks into their paints to create a medium called egg tempera. This technique dates back to ancient Egypt and can be found on many of the paintings from the Old Masters such as Boticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”

We know this because contemporary analysis of the compositions of their paintings reveal that there are added proteins to the works of art. While the reason why they used egg yolks has long eluded us, a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications might reveal why.

The study’s authors found the Old Masters might have added egg yolk to their paintings in order to better preserve them against humidity, surface wrinkling, and—ironically—yellowing of the painting. The proteins from the egg yolk helps prevent water uptake from humid areas, which are particularly prevalent in places like Italy where many of the Old Masters worked their craft.

“In past centuries, artists may not have been able to control the humidity taken up by their pigments,” the study’s authors wrote. They added that it was an improvement to adding more oil to their paintings, which could result in discoloration, crack formation, and even wrinkling.

“Adding some proteinaceous material during pigment preparation, resulting in a coating layer, might have solved the problem of unintentional formation of capillary suspensions, resulting in better, more stable paints with higher pigment content,” the paper stated.

To reach their findings, the study’s authors drew on analysis of Old Master paintings such as Boticelli’s “The Lamentations of Christ” and Da Vinci’s “Madonna of the Carnation” along with chemical and molecular data from lab-made egg tempera. They found that the egg proteins essentially created a thin protective layer around the paint, while adding texture to it. This helped prevent it from wrinkling, while antioxidants within the egg yolks stopped it from yellowing over time by slowing down reactions between the air and oil in the paints.

The findings provide fresh insights into the craft of some of the greatest artists who have ever lived. It just goes to show that while da Vinci and his contemporaries might be gone now, there’s still plenty that we can learn from their processes and artwork. As the old adage goes: You have to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet—and, apparently, a masterpiece work of art.

<<<



---

>>> Rare 1908 Harley-Davidson becomes most expensive motorcycle ever sold at auction


Fox Business

2-12-23

by Elizabeth Pritchett


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/rare-1908-harley-davidson-becomes-most-expensive-motorcycle-ever-sold-at-auction/ar-AA17o1sk?OCID=ansmsnnews11


An extremely rare 1908 Harley-Davidson motorcycle auctioned off in January has become the most expensive bike to ever be sold at an auction, according to Vintagent, a website that tracks vintage motorcycle sales.

The Strap Tank Harley-Davidson sold for $935,000 after fees at the Mecum Auction in Las Vegas on Jan. 28, the auction posted on Facebook. The model was named Strap Tank because nickel-plated steel bands suspended the fuel and oil tanks from the bike's frame.

"We marketed the bike well, and Harley is by far the most famous American motorcycle brand, so we had a feeling it would do well in auction, but obviously you are surprised anytime you sell the most expensive bike ever," said Greg Arnold, Motorcycle Division Manager at Mecum Auctions.

Arnold said the record-breaking bike was restored but still had many of its original parts, including the tank, wheels, engine belt pulley, seat cover and muffler sleeve.

The bike that was auctioned off in Las Vegas was discovered as a complete motorcycle in a Wisconsin barn by David Uihlein in 1941. Uihlein kept it in his possession for the next 66 years.

The Strap Tank was then expertly restored by Paul Freehill of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Of the 450 motorcycles produced by the company in 1908, less than 12 are believed to still be out in the world and even fewer are in the mostly original condition.

On the auction's website, the Strap Tank was described as one of Harley-Davidson's most rare surviving models because it's the first of the breed. It is also the earliest model one could possibly find since older prototypes are long gone.

The coveted models are said to be the most legendary because they established the pattern for future production – clean and conservative styling combined with a somber color scheme, heavy-duty cycle parts and an engine a little bigger and stronger than the rest.

A 1907 Strap Tank that was not restored sold for $715,000 after fees.

<<<



---

>>> Las Vegas Raiders Player Retires from NFL After Selling Rare Pokemon Card


GameRant

by Bryce L. Jackson

Nov 2022


https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/las-vegas-raiders-player-retires-from-nfl-after-selling-rare-pokemon-card/ar-AA14f83t?cvid=2ff1ffa52c5d4780aba6edbdda17b0e7


NFL Linebacker Blake Martinez is ending his football playing career to start a new venture in selling rare Pokemon cards. He sold one rare Pokemon card in near-perfect condition for $672,000, more than double his current Raider's contract salary.

Blake Martinez has played in the NFL since 2016 and has been with the New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, and the Las Vegas Raiders in that time. Though he has seen action in all 7 seasons, he's been a fringe roster player with time on NFL Practice Squads. While he was good in the last game he played, players like this often don't have a long shelf life. So rather than letting NFL front offices decide for him, he made the decision for himself and ended his playing career at 28 and in the middle of the season to focus on family and his business of finding and flipping rare Pokemon cards.

Martinez sold a Pokemon Illustrator card with a Gem Mint 9.5 rating for $672,000. This is more than double what he could have made if the Raiders kept him for the remainder of the season. He has a company called Blakes Breaks that is solely about collecting rare cards and flipping them for profit. Days after he sold the card at auction, he announced his retirement from the NFL.

The Pokemon Illustrator card is one of the crown jewel cards for collectors, up there with Charizard cards similar to what Logan Paul owns. The Pokemon Illustrator card was a promotional card only released in Japan in January 1998 to winners of a card illustration contest. There are an estimated 40 of these cards still in existence.

The landscape of Pokemon cards has changed in recent years, and some fans are making Pokemon trading cards openings and resale a lucrative business. People have sold rare cards for thousands of dollars and the prospect of a quick buck has caused some people to commit crimes trying to obtain Pokemon cards.

NFL players are also retiring more often in recent years. With the negative press about head injuries and other injuries that affect former players' quality of life after their playing careers, more of them are deciding to hang up their cleats while still in their 20s after making respectable money. While most do find careers after football, Martinez has arguably found one of the most potentially lucrative businesses to get into after the sport.

<<<



---

>> cash flow neutral <<


They do have some debt (~ $10 mil per Yahoo), so some of that might be coming due or need to be rolled over. Also it sounds like they have some capital expansion planned. 5 mil in cash isn't much operating capital.

Raising the money at the same time as the rev split would have been better. If you only do the split then the anticipation is that another shoe will be dropping, so investors shy away from the stock until after all the bad news is out. It's also more likely that shorts will pile in after the rev split since they figure a financing is coming. The entity doing the funding can also go short to get more favorable terms for the financing and warrants they will be receiving. It's a swamp for these tiny microcaps, with a lot stacked against them.

Fwiw, the only microcap that 'made the cut' for my Long Term Portfolio is Winmark (WINA). They are an anomaly in the microcap world, check out their phenomenal long term chart. Their business also benefits from recession -


>>> Winmark Corporation (WINA), together with its subsidiaries, operates as a franchisor of retail store concepts that buy, sell, trade, and consign used merchandise primarily in the United States and Canada. The company operates through two segments, Franchising and Leasing. Its franchises retail stores operate under the Plato's Closet, Once Upon A Child, Play It Again Sports, Style Encore, and Music Go Round brand names. The company's Plato's Closet brand stores buys and sells used clothing and accessories for the teenage and young adult market; and Once Upon A Child brand stores buys and sells used and new children's clothing, toys, furniture, equipment, and accessories primarily to parents of children ages infant to 12 years. Its Play It Again Sports brand stores buys, sells, trades in, and used and new sporting goods, equipment, and accessories for various athletic activities, such as team sports, fitness, ski/snowboard, golf, and others; Style Encore brand stores buys and sells used women's apparel, shoes, and accessories; and Music Go Round brand stores buys, sells, trades in, and used and new musical instruments, speakers, amplifiers, music-related electronics, and related accessories. In addition, the company is also involved in the middle-market equipment leasing business focusing on technology and business-essential equipment. As of February 23, 2022, it had 1,271 franchised stores, as well as offers its products online at musicgoround.com, playitagainsports.com, and style-encore.com. Winmark Corporation was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[/i <<<



---

RIBT, at the 8/11 filings they had $5,000,000 cash. The were very close to cash flow neutral. I wonder what they did not tell us at the 8/11 CC. I totally lost confidence in the management.

With hearing aids, these days you can get some great inexpensive ones. Several years ago my dad's ENT doctor said the technology had advanced to the point where for many patients (those with loss of the high end frequencies), the inexpensive brands like Britzgo are basically just as good as custom hearing aids costing 10 X more. They don't last quite as long, but you can get 10 for the price of one. But people with mainly low or mod range frequency loss (which is fairly rare) will still benefit from the custom made expensive hearing aids that are programmable.

Also, the older 'behind the ear' type hearing aids have gotten more popular lately since they look something like a Bluetooth headset, so they have a quasi 'cool' factor. One big advantage with these is they don't require great eyesight to operate.

Btw, sorry to see RIBT tanking today. I figured they might do a financing. But rather than waiting to do it, more often I've seen it done as part of the reverse split. That way they get all the bad news out of the way at once and the stock has a better chance of recovering after the reverse split. That's how it would often work in the small/micro cap biotech sector anyway. But investment-wise, probably best to avoid reverse split stocks altogether, as a general rule.



---

Hearing aids are now available over the counter at Walmart, Walgreens, CVS and Best Buy

I don't know how one would invest in this.

Summary:
Walgreens on Monday started selling hearing aids over the counter at its stores for $799 a pair.

CVS is selling over the counter devices on its website with prices ranging from $199 to $999.

Best Buy this week will also start offering 20 different over-the-counter hearing aids online with prices ranging from $200 to $3,000.

Hy-Vee, a supermarket chain, will offer four different hearing aids online and in 34 locations across Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin this week.

The FDA issued a rule in August that allowed over-the-counter sales of hearing aids for adults ages 18 and older with mild to moderate hearing loss.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/17/hearing-aids-are-now-available-over-the-counter-from-walgreens-cvs-and-best-buy.html

>>> A couple laying a new kitchen floor dug up a trove of 264 rare gold coins that just sold at auction for $845,000

The rare coins sold at auction in London for £754,000 ($842,330), including fees.


Business Insider

10-15-22


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-couple-laying-a-new-kitchen-floor-dug-up-a-trove-of-264-rare-gold-coins-that-just-sold-at-auction-for-845-000/ar-AA12ZxyB?cvid=d4ecae22cf6a4851b9d1d4f26a36b7bd


The auctioneer described the trove as "120 years of English history hidden in a pot the same size as a soda can."

The hoard of 264 coins English gold coins from 1610-1727 was discovered when the unnamed couple dug up the kitchen floor of their house in 2019.

The coin collection is believed to have been once owned by the Fernley-Maisters, a family of traders from Hull, East Yorkshire, who made their fortunes in Baltic trading, BBC News reported.

The auction house Spink & Son told the BBC that the lots garnered international attention, with private collectors from America, Europe, Australia, China, and Japan flocking to the sale.







Auctioneer Gregory Edmund told Insider in a statement: "I have never seen a response to an auction like that before, and the results testify it, my provisional estimate was demolished three times over. It dwarfed any pre-conceived expectations and set dozens of world records along the way."

The highest-fetching coin, dating back to 1720, sold for £62,400 ($69,710), Spink & Son said. It was listed as the "Unbelievable Mint Error" gold coin because it was struck in the reign of King George I with no head but two tails.

The couple found the coins underneath concrete and 18th-century floorboards in their kitchen. The treasure trove was "120 years of English history hidden in a pot the same size as a soda can," Edmund said, per the BBC.

"The story was extraordinary, and that is what achieved the mind-blowing result. I do hope people think before ripping up their floors, though," he said in a statement.

<<<



---

Upcycled fertilizer made from batteries.

This is beyond my pay scale and imagination, Might be a use for old EV batteries?

Upcycled fertilizer producer eyes expansion amid energy crisis

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/08/31/Upcycled-fertiliser-producer-eyes-expansion-amid-energy-crisis

Snippet:
With question marks about Europe's ability to produce enough fertiliser for its crops, Finland’s Tracegrow, which makes organic certified fertilizers from used batteries, hopes circular economy solutions can prove a vital tool.

>>> Christie's to auction Paul Allen's art trove, valued at $1B+


Associated Press

Aug 26, 2022


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/christie-s-to-auction-paul-allen-s-art-trove-valued-at-1b/ar-AA118aye?OCID=ansmsnnews11


NEW YORK (AP) — Some 150 artworks from the collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen will be auctioned at Christie's in New York this fall and are expected to bring in more than $1 billion in total, Christie's and Allen's estate announced Friday.

The works to be auctioned span 500 years of art history from Old Masters to the giants of modern art, Christie's said, adding that all proceeds will go to philanthropy.

Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates, died from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2018. In his lifetime he gave more than $2 billion to causes including ocean health, homelessness and advancing scientific research.



Highlights of the upcoming sale include Paul Cézanne's “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire,” completed in 1890 and estimated to sell for more than $100 million, and Jasper Johns' “Small False Start” from 1960, estimated at $50 million. Other details of the artworks to be auctioned were not released.

Guillaume Cerutti, Christie’s chief executive officer, said in a statement, “The inspirational figure of Paul Allen, the extraordinary quality and diversity of works, and the dedication of all proceeds to philanthropy, create a unique combination that will make the sale of the Paul G. Allen Collection an event of unprecedented magnitude.”

This undated photo provided by Christie's, shows "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne, an oil on canvas from the Paul G. Allen Collection, that is estimated in excess of $100-million.

Jody Allen, Allen's sister and the executor of his estate, said, “These works mean so much to so many, and I know that Christie’s will ensure their respectful dispersal to generate tremendous value for philanthropic pursuits in accordance with Paul’s wishes.”

<<<



---

>>> Sean Connery's own 'James Bond car' sold for $2.4 million


CNN

by Peter Valdes-Dapena

8-20-22


https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enthusiasts/sean-connerys-own-james-bond-car-sold-for-2424-million/ar-AA10SBiF


A silver Aston Martin DB5 that had been owned by actor Sean Connery was sold at auction Thursday for $2.4 million.

It was a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, just the sort of car that British secret agent James Bond drove in the 1960s films in which he was played by Connery.

The Bond character has been played by a number of actors and has driven many different cars in the more than two dozen films in the series. They’ve included everything from BMWs and Bentleys to Chevrolets and Fords. But the 1964 is still the best known “Bond car.”

The one that Connery first drove in the 1964 film “Goldfinger” was an Aston Martin DB5 replete with gadgets like machine guns, an ejector seat and an oil slick maker. More than 50 years later, Connery purchased a 1964 DB5 for himself – though it lacked the movie car’s guns and gadgets – in early 2018. Connery died almost two years later at the age of 90. It was the only DB5 he ever actually owned.

At $2.4 million, which included fees to the auction company Broad Arrow, the car fetched more than originally projected. The company had expected it to sell for between $1.4 million and $1.8 million at its collector car auction in Monterey, California. The buyer was not named. The auction is one of a number of collector car sales during Monterey Car Week, an annual series of classic car events on California’s Monterey Peninsula.





A 1964 Aston Martin DB5 in this car’s pristine condition would typically be worth about $1 million, according to the classic car insurance and event company Hagerty, which recently took full ownership of Broad Arrow.

DB5s directly associated with James Bond films have sold for vastly more than that. A gadget-filled DB5 that was used to promote the film’s original release sold for $6.4 million in 2019.

During his life, Connery had often told his children of his fond memories of driving the Aston Martin in films, his son Jason Connery said in an interview. When they were grown they suggested to their father that he buy one, but he was resistant to the idea.

“He’d say, ‘I don’t want to because it feels a bit obvious, you know, with me,’” Jason Connery said. “I said, ‘But forget it, it’s not about that.’”

Barney Ruprecht, an Aston Martin specialist with Broad Arrow who had also consulted with Connery on making the purchase, advised Connery against getting a car in need of restoration since the work would probably take a couple of years, he said. Instead, he and Connery sought out a car that was in as near-perfect condition as possible. The car remains in very nearly that condition, according to Ruprecht, with only some creases in the seat leather as evidence it has been sat in.

Once Connery purchased the car, he had it repainted from black to Snow Shadow Gray, the color closest to that of the movie car.

But after that work was done, there was little time left to actually drive it.

“Unfortunately as he got older, traveling, especially to Europe [became difficult] and then COVID hit and…,” said Jason Connery. “You know, unfortunately, he never really got to enjoy the car that he’d bought.”

The car was kept by Connery at his home in Switzerland, according to Jason Connery. He was so fond of the car, he kept a photo of it on his desk.

A substantial portion of the proceeds from the sale will go to support the Connery Family Philanthropy Fund, according to the Broad Arrow Group. In addition to the car itself, the winning bidder will receive a ride in the car from the famous retired Formula 1 racing driver Jackie Stewart.

Stewart, like Connery, is from Scotland, and the two were longtime friends.

<<<



---

>>> Alloy Bodied Ferrari 250 TdF Adds Italian Style to Mecum's Amazing Monterey Lineup


Yahoo Finance

by Elizabeth Puckett

August 15, 2022


https://finance.yahoo.com/alloy-bodied-ferrari-250-tdf-133000934.html


This is such a great and unique vehicle even when compared to other members of the 250 GTO family.
The Ferrari 250 GTO will forever be known for two incredible achievements that most automakers would strive for. Firstly, this vehicle has had a major career within the racing and automotive industry for its incredible performance. Secondly, the 250 GTO holds the title for the most expensive vehicle ever sold at auction which some might think is a bad thing. However, if you think about it, this should mean that these vehicles will basically never lose their value and continue to climb as their numbers dwindle. So why should you consider adding this particular 250 GTO to your automotive collection?

First of all, there is the wild powertrain which finds refuge within the confines of the car’s engine bay. This enormous V12 engine utilizes the best Ferrari technology available in its time to make around 260 horsepower. Such a great accomplishment comes from about 2.9-liters of displacement which is pretty low compared to some of the other performance vehicles available at the time. Despite its low displacement, this V12 is still capable of outperforming even some of the fastest cars available in the brand’s golden age. Along with that, the next driver of this incredible automobile will enjoy the original four-speed manual transmission which provides maximum control over the car and sync with the driver’s intentions.

All of that performance is exactly what carried this car through its vast racing career in which it raced at least 13 times with the legendary Lualdi-Gabardi behind the wheel. On top of that, the car also took home first place at Monza where it won Overall winner of the 1958 Coppa Sant'Ambroeus. These achievements would be enough for most racing enthusiasts to call the car legendary on their own but there is even more under the surface for this vehicle. Eventually this Ferrari 250 GTO was sold to Ferdinando Pagliarini, who raced it in 1959 furthering its racing adventures greatly. Overall, this is a legendary automobile built for the track and it deserves a driver who will respect it for that, does that sound like you?





<<<



---

>>> Ultra-rare Honus Wagner baseball card sells for record $7.25 million


Yahoo Sports

by Jack Baer

August 4, 2022


https://sports.yahoo.com/rare-honus-wagner-baseball-card-sells-for-record-725-million-214129565.html


Honus Wagner

American baseball player (1874-1955)

The Holy Grail of baseball cards just set another record.


A T-206 Honus Wagner card, well known as one of the rarest baseball cards ever printed, sold for $7.25 million in a private sale, auctioneer Goldin Auctions announced on Thursday. Goldin estimates the card is one of fewer than 50 authenticated copies left in the world.

The sale breaks a record set last year by another copy of the card, which sold for a total of $6.6 million.

The origin of the card's rarity is a legend itself, as the cards were produced as part of a line made by the American Tobacco Company to put into cigarette packs. Wagner objected to his likeness being used in such a way — the popular story is he didn't want children to buy cigarettes because of him, though it remains very possible he just wanted more money from the ATC.

The company ended up producing only around 200 cards and distributing even fewer, creating a collector's item for the ages.

From The Athletic:

“I’ve been in this business for a very long time and seen a lot of incredible trading cards and pieces of memorabilia, but there is nothing on earth like a T206 card,” Goldin Executive Chairman and founder Ken Goldin said in a statement. “There’s a reason why no Wagner card has never sold for less than it was previously purchased for – the card is art, it’s history, it’s folklore. The T206 is one of the reasons I do what I do and why serious collectors around the world love this hobby so much. To be a part of history and facilitate this record-breaking sale is an honor.”

The record might not stand for long, though, as ESPN notes a similarly rare 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card has already reached $7.08 million at auction and is expected to break $10 million by consigner Heritage Auctions.

<<<



---

>>> Jeweler who sold Trump-Maples ring sentenced to 12 years in multimillion-dollar ‘Yellow Rose’ diamond scam


MarketWatch

July 29, 2022

By Lukas I. Alpert


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jeweler-who-sold-trump-maples-ring-sentenced-to-12-years-in-multi-million-yellow-rose-diamond-scam-11659068024?mod=MW_article_top_stories


Joseph DuMouchelle, who twice auctioned an engagement ring Donald Trump gave to Marla Maples, admitted pocketing millions in a phony sale of a 77-carat diamond





Prosecutors say Joseph DuMouchelle stole more than $25 million he had solicited from investors to buy a 77-carat diamond known as the “Yellow Rose."

A Michigan jeweler to the stars who twice auctioned an engagement ring Donald Trump gave to his second wife, Marla Maples, has been sentenced to 12½ years in prison for running a multimillion-dollar scam involving the sale of a 77-carat diamond.

Joseph DuMouchelle, who ran a well-known jewelry business outside of Detroit, admitted he fleeced several investors in the purported purchase of a huge diamond known as the “Yellow Rose,” pocketing the cash and using it to pay off his numerous debts.

“Mr. DuMouchelle was engaged in a desperate effort to repay creditors, and repeatedly made similar false representations to secure money and items to pay debt,” his attorney wrote in court filings arguing for a more lenient sentence.

Federal prosecutors, however, said the 61-year-old DuMouchelle utilized his years of experience in the jewelry business to operate a ploy to convince several of his clients that they were buying a stake in the giant stone.

“White-collar criminals may use sophisticated methods and apparently legitimate businesses, but their crimes amount to nothing more than lying to get money,” said Dawn Ison, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Michigan. “Victims were often targeted because of their involvement in the jewelry investment, purchase, and auction trade, or were family members and friends of DuMouchelle.”

DuMouchelle’s attorney didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

One victim, Thomas Ritter, the owner of an oil and gas exploration company in North Dakota, lost $12 million to the scam in 2019, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said DuMouchelle contacted Ritter, to whom he owed $400,000, and told him about a deal where he could purchase the “Yellow Rose” stone for $12 million from one seller and then sell it to second buyer DuMouchelle had lined up for $16 million. Ritter agreed, and DuMouchelle instructed him to wire the money to an account Ritter believed belonged to the seller but was actually DuMouchelle’s own account.

DuMouchelle then fabricated a phony bill of sale that purportedly showed the stone had been subsequently sold for $16 million, when in fact, the actual diamond — which prosecutors said was real — had never been purchased in the first place. DuMouchelle used the $12 million furnished by Ritter to pay back a number of debts he owed, and then stalled Ritter by telling him the proceeds of the sale would be coming soon, according to court filings.

An attorney for Ritter declined to comment.

Prosecutors said DuMouchelle ran a similar scam on others, taking in approximately $25 million in total.

Court papers revealed that DuMouchelle had saddled himself with multiple loans with extremely high interest rates and constantly struggled to come up with enough money to pay them back. In his own filings, DuMouchelle described the loans as “predatory.”

In a bankruptcy filing in 2020, DuMouchelle and his wife stated they had $2.3 million in assets and $23.4 million in liabilities.

In 2000, DuMouchelle helped Maples auction off the 7.45-carat diamond engagement ring Trump had given her before they married in 1993. The ring sold for $110,000.

In 2016, DuMouchelle helped the buyers sell the ring at auction to an anonymous bidder for $300,000.

DuMouchelle’s family had been longtime art dealers and jewelers in Michigan with celebrity clients that included Aretha Franklin and Elizabeth Taylor.

<<<



---

>>> Stolen artifacts, some from 400s B.C., returned to Italy from New York


The Washington Post

by Ellen Francis


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/stolen-artifacts-some-from-400s-b-c-returned-to-italy-from-new-york/ar-AAZRzUa?OCID=ansmsnnews11


Dozens of looted artifacts, some dating to the 4th century B.C., made their way to a museum for rescued art in Rome after New York investigators seized the pieces and returned them to Italy this week.





Among 142 antiquities recovered in a criminal investigation is a fresco dating to A.D. 50 and coming from an ancient town that was buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted.

The painting was looted in 1995 from a villa in the Herculaneum archaeological site, and the hedge fund billionaire Michael Steinhardt, a prolific collector of art, bought it for $650,000 that year, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

The Ercolano Fresco, showing an infant Hercules strangling a snake, is valued at $1 million and is part of the collection of recovered items worth around $14 million.

The fresco depicting Hercules is one of 142 antiquities recovered in a criminal investigation.

The pieces include a storage jar from 700 B.C. and three pieces of fresco dating to the 4th century and depicting mourning women. The frescos came from an ancient Greek city in southern Italy. Thieves hacked the paintings from the wall of a tomb, New York officials said.

The items will find a new home at the Museum of Rescued Art in Rome, which opened last month in the Italian capital to display recovered artifacts before their return to the regions where they were plundered or lost.

After Italian and U.S. investigators traced trafficked art back to Steinhardt’s collection, he gave up 180 items, including the sections of fresco, late last year and agreed to a lifetime ban on buying antiquities.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said that 48 of the artifacts handed back to Italy at a ceremony in New York on Wednesday came from Steinhardt and that 60 others were recovered from the New York art dealership Royal-Athena Galleries.

“These artifacts deserve a place in their homeland, where the people of Italy can jointly appreciate the marvels of their country’s past,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

<<<



---

AI art on demand, based upon verbal descriptions -


https://openai.com/blog/dall-e-now-available-in-beta/



---

>>> Michelangelo ink drawing fetches €23 million in Paris sale


Business World

May 20, 2022


https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2022/05/20/449618/michelangelo-ink-drawing-fetches-e23-million-in-paris-sale/


PARIS — An ink drawing of a nude man by Michelangelo sold for more than €23 million ($24.17 million) at auction in Paris on Wednesday, auction house Christie’s said.

The work had been designated a French national treasure, which barred it from being exported from the country for 30 months. But the French government recently removed the designation, allowing the drawing to be offered without restriction to collectors anywhere in the world.

The drawing, A nude man (after Masaccio) and two figures behind him, is thought to be one of Michelangelo’s early works, dating back to the late 15th century.





The drawing, one of the few works of the Italian artist in private hands, was sold in 1907 in Paris and billed as a work of the school of Michelangelo. It was largely forgotten until 2019, when a Christie’s specialist recognized it as one of Michelangelo’s works.

The hammer came down at a price of €23,162,000 euros.

<<<


(Note - The 1907 'school of' designation was likely correct imo. The completed foreground figure has obvious problems)




---

>>> 'The Rock,' the largest white diamond ever auctioned, falls short of expectations


MSN.com

Jacqui Palumbo


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-rock-the-largest-white-diamond-ever-auctioned-sells-for-24219-million/ar-AAX9Hs6?ocid=uxbndlbing


The largest white diamond to ever come up for auction has been sold for 21,681,000 CHF ($21.9 million) at Christie’s in Geneva.

The 228.31-carat, pear-shaped gemstone – dubbed “The Rock” – originated from South Africa, where some of the largest diamonds in the world have been found, including the pear-shaped “Star of Africa” and rose cushion cut “Golden Jubilee.”

“The Rock” is about the size of a golf ball and was previously worn as a lavish Cartier necklace by its former owner. Along with the pear-shaped stone, the new owner will also receive a round diamond and platinum pendant mounting from the French luxury brand.

Ahead of the sale, the head of Christie’s jewelry department in Geneva, Max Fawcett, explained why “The Rock” is a particularly unique stone.

“Often with these largest stones, they sacrifice some of the shape in order to keep the weight,” he told Reuters. “This is a perfectly symmetrical pear-shape form and… one of the rarest gems ever to be sold at auction.”





A 228.31 carat white diamond called "The Rock."

Despite its grander, the hammer price of “The Rock” fell short of its low estimate during the quick bidding period Wednesday. The auction house had given the diamond a 30,000,000 CHF ($30.2 million) high estimate. In 2017, an intricate emerald and diamond necklace from Swiss luxury jeweler de Grisogono, which featured a central 163.41-carat rectangular sparkler, set the record for a white diamond sale at 33,500,000 CHF ($33.8 million USD).

But other lots in the “Magnificent Jewels” sale smashed expectations, including a 1940s pink sapphire, ruby and diamond brooch mounted by Cartier, which sold for 579,600 CHF ($585,000) – over 11 times its high estimate – and a 19th-century diamond and pearl tiara, which sold for more than triple its high estimate at 2,394,000 CHF ($2.4 million).

The final lot was a diamond that is nearly as large as “The Rock” – the 205.07-carat, yellow cushion-shaped stone named “The Red Cross Diamond.” That gem sold for 14,181,250 CHF ($14.3 million), a portion of which will be donated to the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). First sold at Christie’s over a century ago to help the British Red Cross during World War I, the diamond was estimated to sell for between $7 million and $10 million, according to Fawcett.

<<<



---

>>> Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe painting sells for £157.8m at auction


Independent

Peony Hirwani

May 10, 2022


https://www.yahoo.com/now/warhol-marilyn-monroe-painting-sells-051210985.html


Andy Warhol’s 1964 silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe has been auctioned for a record-breaking $195m (£157.8m).

The painting, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, is one of the many paintings in the series Warhol made of Monroe after she died of a barbiturate overdose in 1962.

Warhol’s painting was held in the collection of Swiss art dealers Thomas and Doris Ammann and auctioned at The Christie’s in New York on Monday, 9 May.

The pre-sale estimates of the painting were as high as $200m.

The painting was sold for a hammer price of $170m to US art dealer Larry Gagosian, according to Bloomberg. Additional fees such as a buyer’s price gave it the final value of $195m.

“Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American pop,” Alex Rotter, the chairman of 20th and 21st Century art at Christie’s, said in a statement announcing the auction. “The painting transcends the genre of portraiture, superseding 20th-century art and culture.”

The sale beat the record for a 20th-century artwork, Pablo Picasso’s Women of Algiers, which sold for $179.4m in 2015.

According to Christie’s, all the proceeds of the sale will go to the Switzerland-based Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, which works to establish healthcare and education programmes for children around the world.

Warhol painted this piece based on a promotional photo of Monroe from the 1953 film Niagara.

<<<



---

That diamnond makes more sense than some of the watches for sale now. Heck, with a cell phone who needs a $200,000 watch.

The world gone mad?

https://www.hublot.com/en-us/find-your-hublot?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1N2TBhCOARIsAGVHQc7K3VNfRsme9OGZqnMNFc8-hJoYKTZtetvZKddbqUcVYyEm5MBa6JgaAmLSEALw_wcB

>>> World's largest blue diamond, 'exceptionally rare' at 15 carats, sells for $57 million


by Scott Gleeson

USA TODAY

Apr 28, 2022


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/world-s-largest-blue-diamond-exceptionally-rare-at-15-carats-sells-for-57-million/ar-AAWHkii?ocid=uxbndlbing


The world's largest blue diamond now has a price tag to match its rarity.





The world's largest blue diamond ever to come to auction has sold for 450,925,000 HKD, or $57.5 million.

The 15.10-carat diamond, called "The De Beers Cullinan Blue," sold for $57.5 million Wednesday in an auction at Sotheby's in Hong Kong.

The one-of-a-kind diamond had been expected to sell for about $48 million, but an anonymous buyer secured the gem via phone after an eight-minute bidding war among four potential buyers.

A press release from Sotheby's noted that the diamond comes from South Africa's Cullinan mine and was obtained in 2021. It has since attained all of the highest rankings on which colored diamonds are assessed. The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) categorized the jewel as "fancy vivid blue" – the top color grading of its class.

"Blue diamonds of this importance are exceptionally rare, with only five examples over 10 carats ever having come to auction, none of which have exceeded 15 carats, making the appearance of this flawless gem a landmark event in itself," a Sotheby's statement said.

With a final price of $57,471,960, the gem barely missed eclipsing the record for the most expensive blue diamond ever to sell at auction. The 14.62-carat "Oppenheimer Blue" sold in 2016 for $57,541,779. That's a difference of just under $70,000.

"It is truly a once-in-a-generation stone, and quite simply the greatest blue diamond of its size I have ever seen," Patti Wong, chairman of Sotheby's Asia, said in a statement.

<<<



-

>>> Did Jesse James Bury Confederate Gold? These Treasure Hunters Think So.

What does a search involving possible missing Confederate bounty, the myth of Jesse James, the FBI and a mysterious map reveal about the American psyche?


The Washington Post

May 2, 2022

By David Montgomery


https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/05/02/gold-treasure-hunt/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=nss_yahoo


I clung to a rope on a nearly vertical hillside in rural Ohio, gingerly inching my way down toward a hand-dug shaft that was said to conceal an enormous cache of solid gold bars. I lost my footing and started to slide, but the rope saved me from rolling 70 feet to a creek below or crashing into the trunks of pines and beeches that towered over the slope. The old beech trees were especially haunting: Their smooth bark was elaborately carved with rabbits, human faces, hearts, letters, a boat and what looked like crude blueprints. The trees told an epic story, according to the treasure hunters I was with.

The tale featured the outlaw Jesse James, a powerful secret network of collaborators, and vast quantities of gold they allegedly buried in “depositories” from here to Utah and New Mexico to fund a Confederate uprising after the Civil War. The notorious gunslinger had been a Confederate guerrilla during the Civil War before turning to robbing banks and trains. The treasure hunters were intrigued by a controversial theory that he was part of an underground effort to help the South rise again.

It was a Wednesday in mid-March, the fourth day of the expedition. So far, the findings seemed promising. Grainy video from a camera snaked into a tunnel off the shaft showed potentially man-made structures and possibly reflective material. A metal detector capable of penetrating 25 feet was pinging and showing large metallic targets. It was time to call in a track hoe and start major digging.

“This is no longer a treasure hunt. This is a treasure recovery,” declared Chad Somers, a wiry former rodeo bull rider who had discovered the site. He was joined by Brad Richards, a retired high school history teacher from Michigan who had appeared in two seasons of the History channel series “The Curse of Civil War Gold,” and Warren Getler, a former journalist and longtime investigator of Confederate treasure claims who had been a consultant on Disney’s 2007 treasure-hunting blockbuster “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” Somers had invited Getler for his prominence in the field; Getler brought in Richards, a friend from previous historical treasure investigations.

My disbelief was suspended as shakily as my body on the hillside. I wanted to believe there was gold in them thar hills. But Ohio is one of the last places I would have chosen to dig for treasure buried by Jesse James. History books say he and his brother, Frank, marauded farther west, from the 1860s until 1882, when James Gang traitor Robert Ford shot him in the back of the head in Missouri. During his unusually long career for an outlaw, James cultivated his own mystique, teasing the lawmen on his trail in cheeky letters to newspapers and staging robberies as spectacular, bloody public spectacles. He came to be seen as a noble Robin Hood who was so slick he may have faked his own death. The claim that he buried some of the loot he stole, as well as gold from other sources, was a part of the myth that the treasure hunters hoped to verify.

It seemed fitting that this hunt was in a secluded forest about 30 miles northwest of Zanesville, the birthplace of Zane Grey, the prolific popularizer of the Old West in scores of novels. Whether we found gold or not, we were plunging deep into American mythologies of one sort or another: outlaw legends, fables of rebellion, beguiling notions of hidden historical hands operating behind the scenes.

Zanesville had been seized by treasure-hunting fever before. In March 1949, a posse of men claiming to be intimates or kin of Jesse James blew into town with a primitive land mine detector to search for $1.5 million in gold that they said was buried somewhere just to the north. In the end, all they dug up was an empty metal box, but they told the local papers they also found carvings on trees that they interpreted as clues. In fact, their failure only validated the almost mystical qualities they attributed to James. One of the treasure hunters told the Zanesville Times Recorder that the outlaw had foreseen the invention of metal detectors but knew “how to cover [treasure] with something so no machine will ever locate it.”

Treasure hunting maintains its grip on American culture, with at least two dozen reality shows over the past decade devoted to finding everything from the Holy Grail to the riches of the Knights Templar, according to the database IMDb.com. The predictable, tortured conclusion of these shows is nearly always the same: no treasure — so it must still be out there. But I was descending into the mystery anyway, enchanted in spite of myself. I had first encountered Getler’s work on the Confederate underground in 2009, when I interviewed him about the oddly related mysteries of Masonic symbology around Washington that best-selling novelist Dan Brown centered in his D.C. thriller that year.

I’d come to see treasure hunting and amateur code breaking as metaphors for our age, when the traditional arbiters of truth — the media, government officials, political parties, religious institutions — have lost some, or all, of their authority. We have to decipher things on our own. The challenge in such a conspiratorial climate is to distinguish truth from speculation: What’s the difference between secret knowledge that guides you to a pot of gold and, say, the signs that lead you to suspect that a presidential election was stolen, or that a deadly virus is fake news? The men I was with were looking for something tangibly precious, sure — but in other ways, maybe they were also searching for something that we’re all missing.

At the beginning of the “National Treasure” sequel, Nicolas Cage’s character lectures in Washington about a shadowy fraternity called the Knights of the Golden Circle and a dark secret contained in the missing pages of John Wilkes Booth’s diary. Had the diary pages not been burned, he says, Abraham Lincoln’s “killers may have found a vast treasure of gold, and the Union may well have lost the Civil War.”

It sounds like a villainous conspiracy concocted in Hollywood — except that the fiction is spiced with fact. The Knights of the Golden Circle really did exist. According to one of the few mainstream histories of the organization, “Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War” by David C. Keehn, Booth and at least one other conspirator in plots to kidnap or kill Lincoln probably were members.

The KGC was founded in the 1850s by a Virginia doctor transplanted to — yes — Ohio. It was primarily a Southern group but had plenty of Northern sympathizers, including hundreds in a county about an hour north of Zanesville, according to a news report at the time. The group attracted 50,000 members. Before the war they focused on agitating for secession and building a slaveholding empire in a geographic circle encompassing the southern United States, the Caribbean and parts of Latin America. During the war, they filled the ranks of Confederate forces. After the war, the KGC seemed to melt away, possibly splintering into pro-South successor groups or joining the Ku Klux Klan.

This was just when Jesse James was making his own transition from wartime Confederate guerrilla to postwar, politically inspired, anti-Union bandit and killer. Over the next century, legends of the KGC and myths of the outlaw became entwined and endlessly embellished.

And Confederate gold did go missing. In the waning days of the war, in April 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled Richmond with a trainload of what was left of the Confederate treasury in gold and silver. Some of it was lost or stolen in the chaos, and the case remains a mystery. A popular theory in treasure-hunting circles is that the KGC may have had a hand in the matter, and that the group also buried much more gold from other sources in multiple locations. KGC historian Keehn disagrees: “I never really found anything that supports the treasure-hunting thing,” he told me.

James entered the picture in the early 1960s and mid-1970s when a self-styled private detective named Orvus Lee Howk, who claimed to be James’s grandson, wrote a book and contributed to another arguing that the outlaw was a KGC leader who buried gold. Howk presented no evidence beyond his colorful yarns, but he had joined the treasure hunt in Zanesville in 1949. Today, the James-KGC-gold connection forms an active subculture within treasure-hunting culture, spawning books like “Jesse James and the Lost Templar Treasure” and TV movies like “Jesse James’ Hidden Treasure.”

Chad Somers and others at the dig site in Ohio. Somers, who grew up near the site, vowed to find the treasure when he was about 10 years old, after a neighbor told him there was a rumor that Jesse James had buried gold by a creek where the boy played.

T.J. Stiles, author of the groundbreaking biography “Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War,” told me that the treasure hunters get at least one important thing right about the outlaw: He was a much more significant political figure than standard accounts portray. “With Jesse, it was crime plus politics,” Stiles says. He and his gang “weren’t modern terrorists, but what distinguishes him from all the other criminals in the 19th century is the way he would use his notoriety to promote a political cause” — namely, the Lost Cause of the South and the maintenance of white supremacy. James was part of a band that targeted banks connected to Unionists and harassed election officials during the midterms of 1866. He decried the postwar Republican party of Lincoln and advocated against the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant in 1872. The treasure hunters, says Stiles, leap “ahead of the evidence” when they extend James’s political program to include burying gold to support a Confederate resurrection or some other mysterious power grab.

James roamed as far north as Minnesota to rob a bank, but no deeds in Ohio have been documented. And yet, this is undoubtedly murky territory, which makes absolute proof of anything elusive. James “lived his whole life underground, and there’s no collection of [personal] letters from him,” Stiles says. “All the evidence about him personally has to be delivered with a caveat, so that also means that he’s more susceptible to revisions, and sometimes weird revisions. … Somebody is going to study, if they haven’t already, [the connection] between this kind of conspiracy theory approach to history in recent decades and people’s willingness to believe that the election was stolen, for example — this belief in the sensational and conspiracies and hidden hands.”

Getler says he admires the work of Stiles and Keehn but thinks historians’ search for truth doesn’t cover all the ground. “They don’t get their hands dirty in the field as an archaeologist or even treasure people,” he says. “There’s no way to get at this history unless you’re being a guy who’s literally digging in the ground.” Getler insists his speculations are not a conspiracy theory; rather, they are a theory about a known conspiracy — the KGC — and pushing the theory in new directions. “I’m the last person to say this is all neatly integrated, seamless. ... It’s messy. It’s suggestive. Much of it is not definitive. But there’s enough there to make the case.”

Each of the trio of treasure hunters in Ohio was after something more elusive than gold. A bit of bullion would be nice, of course. They even discussed how they would document the discovery, should there be one. But any gold they dug up would be a token of something more personally priceless.

Getler, 61, a former reporter with the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal and other publications, was a senior writer for Discovery Communications in the late 1990s when he started researching the history. (Getler is the son of the late Michael Getler, who was a deputy managing editor and ombudsman at The Washington Post.) That’s when he met a veteran treasure hunter named Bob Brewer from Arkansas. Brewer, who’d retired from a Navy career including combat service in Vietnam, believed that some elders in his extended family in the early 20th century had been “sentinels” guarding caches of supposed KGC gold. One had showed him a “treasure tree” scarred with strange carved symbols.

Brewer taught himself to read telltale signs left in trees and rocks — such as hearts, turtles and turkey tracks — and to follow lines of buried clues for miles through the hills and woods. Using his system, in 1991, in a hilly forest in western Arkansas, he located a cache of gold and silver coins minted between 1802 and 1889, with a face value of nearly $460. Two years later he assisted in another haul in Oklahoma, following a copy of a map with the symbol “JJ” and attributed to Jesse James by other treasure hunters.

Getler thought the implications of Brewer’s experiences — the existence of a powerful secret network after the Civil War — could be the biggest story of his career. It would add a missing chapter to American history and would raise the question of what became of the secret network. In the National Archives, Getler found KGC records with examples of the group’s coded symbols. Brewer and he located other markings that old stories tied to the KGC on suspected treasure trails in several states. They also found symbols similar to those cited by Howk as having been left by James. In 2003, Simon & Schuster published their book “Shadow of the Sentinel” (retitled “Rebel Gold” for the paperback) with 21 pages of endnotes, about the quest to crack the code of KGC treasure.

The work inspired a new generation of KGC treasure hunters; even the FBI joined the chase. In 2018, a father-and-son treasure-hunting team said they had detected a large cache of gold in a forest at Dents Run in northwestern Pennsylvania: as much as $50 million in suspected gold stolen from a mule-led Union Army pack train in 1863. Citing Getler’s KGC research, an FBI agent filed an affidavit seeking permission to dig up and seize the gold as stolen federal property. The story of the lost gold, the agent wrote in the affidavit, “fits the description of a KGC ‘waybill’ as it provides a very detailed ‘map’ in its telling of an account, mixing truth and symbols.”

In the end, the FBI said it found no gold. But the hunters grew suspicious when the agents wouldn’t let them watch the excavation, and after residents later told reporters they had heard digging at night and seen convoys of FBI vehicles leaving the site. In response to a lawsuit filed by the treasure hunters, the agency has been ordered to start releasing documents related to the dig later this month.

Since the early 2000s, Getler has been an entrepreneur and worked in communications for tech companies, including an underground detection technology firm. Periodically in his spare time, he returns to KGC treasure investigations. “He’s got his teeth around the leg of this thing … and he just won’t let it go,” Robert Whitcomb, Getler’s former editor at the Herald Tribune, told me. “He’s always been a very, very persistent writer and journalist.”

One of Getler’s closest friends, Andy Secher, a trilobite fossil specialist affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, says Getler always “had the idea that he had a great purpose. That there was something in his writing, in his future …. that was going to significantly impact a lot of people.” If exposing gold cached by a secret network is that decisive project, Secher says that he, for one, still needs to see proof it’s real. “From the bottom of my heart, I can’t wish him more luck and every good tiding,” he says. “But the question becomes at some point, show me something. And I say that to him all the time.”

Getler told me he tries to approach the subject as the journalist he used to be. “I’m not sitting here saying to people, ‘Believe, believe, believe.’ It takes my own skepticism to be overcome to start feeling good about the overall picture,” he says. “You can dismiss it outright. You can chuckle at it. Or you can say, ‘Hmmm, what if there’s something rather profound here?’ And gold bars are a touchstone for it all.” Finding gold in Ohio would be a vindication, a demonstration that his theories are correct and that our understanding of history must be adjusted.

“It’s become my legacy, it’s my life’s work,” he says. “You can kick me in the shins a million times: ‘Warren, pull up a damn gold bar and prove it.’ I’m as close as you possibly can be.”

Brad Richards, 52, the former history teacher from Michigan, told me that beyond recouping his expenses for two trips to Ohio, the gold means less than the possible contribution to history. “How many untold stories are out there?” he says. “It would be incredibly exciting to be a part of discovering and illuminating hidden history.” He adds that he’s the “skeptical one.” “I’m not big on looking at grainy video footage and being 100 percent certain on anything. ... I’ve got to see it to believe it.”

Chad Somers, 43, the former bull rider, was raised in a speck of a rural crossroads called Purity, near the treasure site. When Somers was about 10, a neighbor his grandfather did some work for told the boy there was a rumor that James had buried gold down by a creek where the boy was headed to play. Somers vowed to find it.

After his bull-riding days in his 20s, he fell on hard times. He and his girlfriend, Hope Bowser, lived in a mobile-home park and paid the rent by doing maintenance, until they were evicted and lost everything, he told me. One day about four years ago, they found an old portrait at a yard sale that reminded them of Jesse and Frank James. An appraiser cast doubt on it being a photo of the brothers, so Somers started researching to try to authenticate the portrait himself, in order to sell it. “He was going to prove that Jesse James had been in Ohio,” Bowser told me. “That’s what started this whole thing.”

Bowser and one of her brothers co-owned about two dozen acres that included the forest on the steep hill overlooking the creek — the same creek Somers had visited as a boy of about 10. Any treasure found could be claimed by them. Local lore held that there had been a gold mine in the area a long time ago, and Somers began to wonder if the rumors of a gold mine and the rumors of outlaw gold were conflations of the same story. One day he announced to Bowser, “I’m going to dig Jesse James’s gold bars out of the side of your hill.”

He explored the forest, looking for a place to dig. He took a smoke break at one of the only flat places on the hillside, a narrow ledge beside a tree shaped like a W. Somers suddenly had what he described to me as a kind of vision that featured James, wearing an oilskin duster, smoking a cigar, announcing that he would bury his biggest treasure right here. Somers commenced digging.

“It’s become my legacy, it’s my life’s work,” says treasure hunter Warren Getler about his search to find gold that he believes was buried by Jesse James.

People around Purity laughed at him, thought he was wasting his time. When he needed money, he suspended digging to remodel houses or cut firewood. At one point he had made it down 30 feet — I saw a picture of him down there — and stood on what he thought could be the concrete top of a vault. To learn more about what he was looking for, he ordered Getler and Brewer’s book, and it became his bible. He brought it into the field with him every day as he scoured the territory for the kinds of markers and symbols that the authors described.

Late last year, he sent Getler a Facebook message about his preliminary findings. Getler had received similar queries and was wary. But when he heard how close Somers was to Zanesville, “He was like, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and we’ve been in very close touch ever since,” Somers says. Getler made an exploratory visit in December.

Somers saw the treasure hunt in the largest possible terms. “I think we can all agree that we need a little hope right now,” he told me on the phone, before I went to Ohio. “… I want people that really have nothing … to see what they can do. I’m not saying everybody can go out and find a treasure like this, but I’m saying that with the right mind-set and determination, the things they think are out of reach might be closer than they thought.”

Years ago, when I first discovered Getler and Brewer’s book on cracking the KGC code, I read portions of it aloud to my eldest daughter, then age 10. The way the authors described the American landscape itself as potentially being an encoded map, studded with clues that looked ordinary only to those lacking imagination and skill, was magical. My daughter was familiar with scavenger hunts, of course, and together we marveled at the possibility that more than a century ago people laid clues for anyone to find.

Now, in Ohio, as a journalist rather than as a dad, I was forced to confront whether the power of this story lay in its truth or its creativity — and I knew my job was to be on the lookout for signs the magic was an illusion.

Warren Getler goes over maps and clues with the team at a hotel in Newark, Ohio. Behind him is Brad Richards. (Dustin Franz/For The Washington Post)

All right, now the adventure begins,” Getler said on the first day of the hunt as we trudged a muddy half-mile across a field and through the woods to the site of the suspected treasure trove.

Richards, the former teacher from Michigan, and his son, Bradley, a high school freshman, were taking readings above the shaft with a deep-penetrating metal detector hooked up to a digital imaging system. Bradley tethered himself to a tree to run the machine on the unforgiving incline. “The data will show what the data will show,” Richards said as his son walked grids on the hill.

Getler led me down to look at the carvings on the beech trees. He said these offered some of the most promising evidence that this could be a treasure site. On one, hearts and arrows were tilted to point in the direction of the shaft. There were carved rabbits — “rabbit trails” being a reference to paths leading to treasure — and a pair of “Js” carved back-to-back, which, according to Jesse James treasure lore, depicts the outlaw’s initials. There was a diagram that Getler interpreted as a shaft with tunnels, and beside it was a portrait of a man with a broad brim hat and what could be a vault or a chest near where his heart should be.

Getler conceded that some of this could be graffiti left by lovers — initials, hearts and arrows — but that’s how KGC treasure hieroglyphics tend to work, he said. Clues are hiding in plain sight, mixed intentionally or coincidentally with red herrings, he said. A further point of validation, he added, is that some of the symbology here in Ohio, such as the hearts and the “JJs,” matched that found at other suspected treasure sites out west.

He hurried me on to another elaborately carved tree where he said I would get to see James’s signature. Getler had spotted it on his first visit in December. “When I saw his name on the tree, I trembled and tears came out of my eyes,” he recalled. The tree’s carvings told a story in three acts, he said, depicting how the group brought the gold up the creek, buried it and certified that the outlaw was their leader. But today the signature — “Jesse W. James 1882” — was invisible, and he didn’t have a picture from December. It had been raining. Getler fingered the moist bark. “Damn it,” he said. “It’s too wet.”

We returned to that beech each day, waiting for the bark to dry and for the signature to reappear. I was troubled that the symbology seemed so malleable, open to the creation of more than one story. The risk of confirmation bias — fitting the signs to a desired meaning — seemed enormous. But I also found that I was invested, too. One day I suddenly saw a long boat carved across the trunk of the signature tree. Getler hadn’t known what to make of those horizontal lines that converged upward into a prow. He savored my addition to the story. “Maybe they’re saying they came by barge here?” Getler asked.

A beech tree with various carvings. According to the treasure hunters, the carvings could point the way to gold. (Dustin Franz/For The Washington Post)

Other evidence that Getler and Somers relied on included a copy of a treasure map attributed to Howk — the alleged confidant or grandson of James’s who had been on the 1949 Zanesville treasure hunt. The map is widely shared on the Internet in treasure-hunting circles, but I couldn’t determine who first posted it, and Getler didn’t know either. He had gone to the trouble of checking signed initials on the map against the handwriting in Howk’s letters in a Texas archive — but Howk’s veracity is dismissed by historians. I wasn’t ready to trust the map, but Getler’s and Somers’s interpretation revealed how they approached the code breaking.

The map appeared to show geographical features of the Ohio property. If so, a “Confederate Depository” was indicated at the site where Somers started digging his shaft. But the map was labeled — Getler and Somers would say intentionally mislabeled — as describing a treasure site somewhere in Tennessee. Somers scrutinized faint hand-lettering at the top of the map that appeared to say “Battle Site.” He noticed the stem of the letter “B” was detached from the curves, which could make it “13.” And “attle” was written in such a way that could be read as “oHio.” Rather than “Battle Site,” did it say “13 Ohio Site,” with 13 coinciding with the plat number of the property? In addition, Somers and Getler proposed that when the map was turned to reflect the north-south direction of the creek in Ohio, the “N” in the locational note “From Nashville” could become the “Z” in “From Zanesville.”

The treasure hunters also cited a letter from Howk to another participant in the 1949 Zanesville treasure search. It referenced clues including an old shovel, a wagon iron and a wolf trap, and instructed, “Drive a stake at each point until we can run the lines[;] then where the lines cross is your solution.” Somers had uncovered a shovel, with the blade pointing toward the shaft, and a wagon axle, also pointing toward the shaft. He had yet to find a wolf trap.

The risk of confirmation bias — fitting the signs to a desired meaning — seemed enormous. But I also found that I was invested, too.

Iwas pulling for Somers, Getler and Richards to be right about all this, despite what the historians said. It would be a more interesting world if they were, and it would give others the courage to challenge conventional wisdom. But before I could become a true believer, I needed to see if their narrative could withstand attempts to poke holes in it.

First, the beech trees. Could they really be that old? I had brought a tape measure with me. While the treasure hunters were taking metal-detector readings and exploring related sites, I measured the circumference of the trees that were pillars of their story. Earlier I had called Scott Aker, head of horticulture and education at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, for a briefing on the age of trees. He told me that, indeed, beech trees can grow to be hundreds of years old. Unfortunately, the surest ways to tell a tree’s age is to cut it down, or bore a hole into it, and count the rings.

However, one way some arborists estimate a beech tree’s age is to divide a tree’s circumference in inches by 3.14 (or pi) and multiply by six. By that method, three of the key trees range in age from about 130 to 170 years old, which would date them to the mid- to late 19th century. But the tree where Getler saw the signature would be only about 110 years old. Aker cast doubt on this method because it doesn’t account for local growing conditions; the trees could easily be older — or younger. Results of my tree-measuring test: ambiguous.

I looked for neighbors of the Ohio site who might have family lore about James, in addition to the gold rumors Somers had heard. Lavina Nethers, 85, lives a short drive from the dig site. Sitting in her living room, she told me how her late husband, James Nethers, had been named for Jesse James and that his great-great-grandmother had regularly washed the outlaw’s clothes and given him a meal when he passed through the area. One day, “she told Jesse that she wouldn’t be able to wash his clothes or take care of him when he comes through again. And he wanted to know why. She told him that they were going to foreclose on the farm the next day and she wouldn’t be there. And he said, ‘Don’t worry about it; I’ll take care of it. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He came back the next morning and had the money for her foreclosure. … The next day, the bank was robbed. She got to keep the farm and they got their money.”

A potential problem with Nethers’s testimony, though, is that stories about James paying off mortgages are legion. I was reminded of a verse by Woody Guthrie: “Many a starvin’ farmer / The same story told / How the outlaw paid their mortgage / And saved their little homes.” Guthrie was singing about Pretty Boy Floyd, not James, but paying off the mortgages of society’s underdogs is an archetype of American outlaw legends, a refashioning of Robin Hood with a gun instead of a longbow.

Later I called Eric James, in Danville, Ky., who runs a Jesse James family website and genealogical database dedicated to documenting the family tree back to Colonial Virginia and correcting what he considers myths about the outlaw. Almost every week he gets a letter or email from people with old family stories about James. What is it about Jesse James that triggers a sense of connection in so many, real or imagined? “People need heroes,” says James, 79, who’s writing a five-volume history of the James family, and whose research shows he’s a distant cousin of Jesse James. “We don’t have heroes today.”

To many in the James family, the outlaw’s legend has been a burden — including stories of buried treasure and periodic Hollywood glamorization, such as 2007's “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” starring Brad Pitt. “It’s been going on ever since Jesse was assassinated,” Eric James says. “And thanks to reality TV, it’s not going to stop in the near future or the next 100 years.” He adds: “The funny part about it is, all the James descendants would love for the treasure hunters to find the gold, because then we could claim the inheritance! … [Or] if they could prove it came from a bank or a railroad, that money could be claimed by ... the descendants of those corporations.”

I found myself wrestling with the tension between keeping an open mind and not being deluded. “What lies between skepticism and credulity?” I asked one morning, as Getler and I sat beside the shaft Somers had dug, while Brad and Bradley Richards took more detector readings to pick a spot to start drilling. “A straight skeptic might never find gold, and an overly credulous person might be faked out all the time and keep going, wanting to believe. … [But] belief is also an important part of the tool kit.”

“If you don’t have that, you can’t keep going,” Getler agreed. “That’s where I say ambiguity is our worst enemy. … And the sad part is, until you pull up bars of gold in Dents Run, or Ohio, or [a third active site in] New Mexico, it’s just, for some, a lot of hot air, or wild speculation, or some might even say a fool’s errand.”

Before using metal detectors, Somers had dug a shaft based on clues he had gathered over the course of four years. (Dustin Franz/For The Washington Post)
Say what you will about tree carvings and treasure maps; it’s harder to argue with metal detectors. The Richardses had confirmed two fat targets near Somers’s site, and a ground-penetrating radar survey later indicated other possible targets nearby. Getler conceded the devices they were using weren’t as sophisticated as the equipment that the FBI drew upon at Dents Run — he couldn’t afford that technology here — but the Ohio technology had obtained readings at Dents Run consistent with the results that convinced the FBI to dig, he said. As I continued my cautious journey down the rope on that hopeful fourth day when digging was to begin and the hill would yield its secrets, my mind was still open to any possibility. Was I feeling treasure fever?

The rope delivered me safely to the ledge by the shaft, where I found Somers crouching beside his makeshift tunnel braces. Sun was glinting off the creek, a gossipy circle of wild turkeys faced us on the other side, and Somers was in a pensive mood. He was pretty sure he was about to become a rich man, and he had complicated feelings about that. It would lift him out of poverty and allow him to provide for his family and friends, but he knew gold could also be a curse. “At the end of this thing, I just want everybody involved to be able to sit down and smile and wrap our minds around what we have done … regardless of whether it’s in there,” he said, adding: “I mean, we kind of already know it’s in there.”

Somers couldn’t help remarking that for all the fancy technology and theories that had been brought to bear, they were still digging right where, in his vision, Jesse James had told him to dig in the first place.

Getler hired a local equipment operator who began carving a switchback path that would allow his track hoe to descend the steep grade to the dig site. They worked on the road all day, filling the forest with the grinding sound of human intervention. By nightfall, the path was nearly done.

The next day began with two omens, one hopeful, one not so much. As the track hoe operator prepared to fell a dead tree and position the machine for the final assault on the treasure, Somers reached into the dirt at the base of the tree and found a T-shaped piece of metal. It was the same shape as the diagrams carved on two of the beech trees. The operator’s assistant identified it as a portion of an animal trap. Could this be the wolf trap spoken of in the letter between Zanesville treasure hunters in 1949 — or was it meaningless scrap? Any attempts to date the artifact would have to wait.

“Hey, Chad, nice find there, buddy,” Getler said. “After that, I’m one step closer to believing it’s here, and if it’s not, I’ll eat my words.”

Getler made a last visit to the beech trees. I sat with him on the ground and contemplated the carvings, wondering if the discoveries to come would confirm the story he thought the trees told. But Jesse James’s signature was still invisible. Was the bark too wet — or had he even been here?

By day’s end, the track hoe finally reached the site. The sun was about to set, so Getler postponed digging until morning. Given that schedule, I thought I could depart the scene to give Hope Bowser a lift to the gas station because her car had run out of gas. While I was at the pump, I got a text message that the treasure digging had begun anyway — and something dramatic was happening. I was out of position, a reporter’s worst nightmare. I raced back to the site and later reconstructed a few moments that I missed via interviews and video that I reviewed.

Somers rode the excavator’s shovel down into the hole and started opening what he thought looked like a passage deeper into the hill. “Tunnel, tunnel!” exclaimed Getler, standing on a berm above the hole. “If they confirm a tunnel, I’m going to start hugging everyone.”

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, an angry man stalked onto the scene. He ordered the digging to halt and everyone to leave the property.

Bowser identified him as one of her brothers, though not the one she said co-owned the property with her. But the co-owner soon contacted her as well and let her know he disapproved of digging for alleged gold with a track hoe and cutting a road to get to the site. The brothers had been taken by surprise by the amount of disruption to the property, and it was clear that at least some members of Bowser’s family considered the treasure hunt a deluded fantasy.

We left. I felt as though a spell had been broken. The cold reality of family drama made the treasure hunt seem like a game that made sense only if you were in on it. It dawned on me that, in spite of ourselves, we had arrived at that most predictable juncture in a treasure narrative: the moment of reconciling with the absence of treasure.

But treasure narratives have infinite powers of regeneration. Gold hadn’t been found — but neither had an empty hole. Within several days, after Getler, the Richardses and I had left Ohio, members of Bowser’s family relented. One told me, on the condition that I not publish his name because of his job, that stories of gold on the property go back decades. In the 1950s, a man dug for gold there for years. He probably thought the gold had been buried, because mineralogists have determined the area is not suited for naturally occurring gold, the family member said. But the digger apparently never found anything.

The family allowed the hunt for Jesse James’s gold to continue, on the condition that it be conducted less invasively. Somers began excavating by hand, crawling into tunnels and voids. He snaked a camera deeper into the hill, and as this story was going to press, he was sending back images that he and Getler interpreted as signs of objects and tool work.

For the time being, though, that thing more precious than gold that each of the treasure hunters was seeking continued to elude them. I hadn’t found what I was looking for, either — something solid to hold on to in this swirl of legend, fact and fantasy; a final verdict. These days, certainty may be the most out-of-reach treasure of all.


___________________

>>> Rare $ 7 million ‘outer space’ black diamond to be auctioned in Dubai


MarketWatch

Jan 2022


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/rare-24-7-million-e2-80-98outer-space-e2-80-99-black-diamond-to-be-auctioned-in-dubai/ar-AASSsSl?ocid=uxbndlbing


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Auction house Sotheby’s Dubai has unveiled a diamond that’s literally from out of this world.

Sotheby’s calls the 555.55-carat black diamond — believed to have come from outer space — “The Enigma.” The rare gem was shown off on Monday to journalists as part of a tour in Dubai and Los Angeles before it is due to be auctioned off in February in London.

Sotheby’s expects the diamond to be sold for at least $6.8 million. The auction house plans to accept cryptocurrency as a possible payment as well.

Sophie Stevens, a jewelry specialist at Sotheby’s Dubai, told The Associated Press that the number five bears an importance significance to the diamond, which has 55 facets as well.

“The shape of the diamond is based on the Middle-Eastern palm symbol of the Khamsa, which stands for strength and it stands for protection,” she said. Khamsa in Arabic means five.

“So there’s a nice theme of the number five running throughout the diamond,” she added.

Stevens also said the black diamond is likely from outer space.

“With the carbonado diamonds, we believe that they were formed through extraterrestrial origins, with meteorites colliding with the Earth and either forming chemical vapor disposition or indeed coming from the meteorites themselves,” she said.

Black diamonds, also known as carbonado, are extremely rare, and are found naturally only in Brazil and Central Africa. The cosmic origin theory is based on their carbon isotopes and high hydrogen content.

<<<

SHIB ~ Large Ethereum Whale Pounces on Shiba Inu (SHIB) and One Metaverse Token, Buys Over $212,000,000 Worth of Crypto
https://dailyhodl.com/2021/12/22/large-ethereum-whale-pounces-on-shiba-inu-shib-and-one-metaverse-token-buys-over-212000000-worth-of-crypto/

>>> What DAOs are and what they might buy next


Yahoo Finance

by Andy Serwer with Max Zahn

December 11, 2021


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-da-os-are-and-what-they-might-buy-next-103821642.html


The scene: Sotheby’s auction house in Manhattan. Auctioneer Quig Bruning is poised at the lectern before a packed house. Bidding is set to commence at $20 million.

The object in question: A rare, first printing of the U.S. Constitution, one of 13 surviving copies, made for delegates to the Constitutional Convention and Continental Congress.

After a brief introduction the bearded auctioneer commences, and what happens next is straight out of Hollywood: Escalating million-dollar bids phoned in from unseen buyers (on old school landlines presumably to guard against dropped calls), last second raises and high anxiety.

The bidding immediately soars $10 million to $30 million and is pared to two buyers. After that the action slows a bit, though the tension mounts as Bruning congenially elicits $1 million increments. “Quite the drama,” he remarks at one point. (No kidding.) The gavel finally comes down at $43.2 million, a record sale for a historical document according to Sotheby's, with the winner being billionaire financier Ken Griffin, founder of the Chicago hedge fund and financial services firm Citadel.

What Bruning, (or even the participants themselves) may not have realized, is that there was even more here than meets the eye.

What this auction reflected was a smackdown between elite, status-quo finance versus the encroaching world of populist crypto. Because bidding against Griffin and ultimately losing was a crypto-backed entity, ConstitutionDAO, which represents that very new world of non-money, money.

What the heck is ConstitutionDAO? A group of crypto investors who banded together specifically to buy the Constitution using a digitally based organizational structure called a decentralized autonomous organization (or DAO). (Pronounced “Dow.”) Sort of like a decentralized Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or Indiegogo campaign done on crypto. Or maybe even better “a group chat with a bank account,” as one participant describes it.

Ken Griffin may not be J.P. Morgan, and has done some disrupting of his own, but relative to these cats, he’s 100% legacy. That Griffin — who’s been a crypto skeptic, though he’s come around a bit recently —intends to exhibit his copy of the Constitution at Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, which is funded by Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder, Sam Walton, is perhaps icing on the old economy cake.

I’ll get back to Grif and the auction in a bit, but first some more on DAOs, which for starters have an ill-defined legal status as of now. So far only Wyoming has legally recognized DAOs. (Hey, here’s an FAQ sheet on how to form a DAO from the Wyoming Secretary of State for ya!) The SEC has taken note and seems not to be amused. To wit: “SEC Stops Wyoming-Based DAO From Registering 2 Digital Tokens."

“The reality of DAOs is they’re not currently legal structures at all,” says Alex Taub, co-founder of Upstream, a platform that streamlines and simplifies the process of creating a DAO, who says he invested a few hundred dollars in ConstitutionDAO. “I don’t care what Wyoming says, that’s flimsy. They’re potential legal structures. The concept of the LLC has only been around since the 1970s, who’s to say DAO is not the LLC of the future?”

On the other hand the federal government hasn’t completely dismissed DAOs. For instance, in a recent bizarro, rabbit hole of a story (even by crypto standards), the Feds sold (through intermediaries) Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which it had confiscated from “Martin Shkreli, (the price-gouging young pharmaceutical speculator who was later convicted of securities fraud)” to PleasrDAO for $4 million, according to The New York Times. Believe me when I tell you this stuff is wild.

Even wilder perhaps (it's difficult to imagine using the superlative adjective in crypto) is Olympus DAO, “a "staking" scheme with an annual percentage yield of 7,000% via new OHM token mints,” according to CoinDesk. (What could possibly go wrong?) In the mood for a tamer, warmer DAO? Check out Kimbal Musk’s (yes, Elon’s bro) Big Green DAO, the first nonprofit-led philanthropic DAO, which focuses on food justice.

For all their revolutionary potential, it’s early days yet for DAOs, with the concept only going back to 2015 or so. One infamous project, “The DAO” launched in 2016 using Ethereum (ETH-USD) and was hacked shortly thereafter. (That hack resulted in what’s known as “hard fork” of Ethereum from Ethereum Classic for those of you versed in this kind of thing.)

Some say DAOs are having their moment — or maybe getting ready for prime time is more like it. “We believe that this past month with the ConstitutionDAO will be the NBA Top Shot moment for DAOs,” says Taub, referring to the basketball NFT (a non fungible token, I wrote about them here) which jump-started that realm.

I should also note that DAOs are connected to the broader trend of what’s known as DeFi (or decentralized finance), a blockchain-based financial parallel universe that uses no (or little) traditional intermediaries like banks, exchanges or broker dealers. It remains to be seen how viable DeFi and DAOs, as well as NFTs and indeed the whole world of crypto is. Suffice it to say that activity in this new world is ramping up, and to a degree at the expense of the legacy world. Will the new world come crashing down? Who knows.

But let’s return to that auction of the Constitution, because there’s a slew of fascinating detail. The Verge, fyi, just did a nice longform interview with Jonah Erlich, a software engineer, who was one of 30 ConstitutionDAO’s core contributors (don’t say organizer).

Turns out the project had 17,437 donors with a median donation size of $206.26, who ponied up Ethereum through a platform called Juicebox.money. According to the Verge interview, the whole thing started as a joke on Twitter and came together in a week. (If that seems capricious, note that Griffin just revealed that buying the Constitution was whimsy for him too. From Bloomberg: “I was sitting at home in New York and my son calls me to say, ‘Dad, you have to buy the Constitution'” (Insists the billionaire’s son.)

As for Erlich, he ended up actually going to Sotheby's for the auction. This from The Verge: “It was exhilarating. … During the auction, when the number was creeping up, I felt like I was going to puke. If we won, I might have cried. It was a very intense experience, especially after this crazy week.”

And what if in fact his group had won? What were their intentions?

“...At that point, the DAO would have voted on what to do with it. For example, we had museums lined up that were going to give proposals on how their museum should be the one to store and display this document. The DAO would also be able to vote on what text should be displayed alongside this copy of the Constitution. What message do we want to share with the world? We probably would have funds left over to give to a community that is really excited about doing things. The token holders would set the future direction.”

Sounds reasonable enough. On the other hand, when Kevin Roose of The New York Times in this comprehensive piece took “a spin through” this community he also found that someone raised this slightly more disturbing line of questioning: “Is there a safeguard to make sure the DAO doesn’t vote to eat the constitution? Or other method of destruction?” Yikes!

In any event it’s all moot because ConstitutionDAO lost — at least in part perhaps because Griffin could see the DAO’s bid was capped at $42 million (Sotheby’s required the DAO to keep millions in reserve) and simply exceeded it by $200,000. “They should’ve obfuscated how much they had,” says Taub. "You’re playing poker with the richest people in the world. They’re no dummies.”

Cullen Roche, the founder and chief investment officer at financial advisory firm Discipline Funds and a former advisor at Merrill Lynch, has a similar take. “I think the lesson with the Constitution DAO is building an entity that publicly reports its bidding value is obviously pretty naive,” he says. “Everybody knows Griffin has bottomless pockets, he wouldn't go to bid and say I’m worth $40 billion and here’s all $40 billion —come play ball. He would never put up a bid like that. In this case transparency was counterproductive and a weakness.”

And there was Griffin’s state of mind. “I told myself, ‘I am going to own this. I don’t do that very often,” he said at an interview on Thursday after a luncheon hosted by the Palm Beach Civic Association at the Florida city’s Four Seasons hotel, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg also reported that Griffin said he was in touch with the DAO the night of the auction, and after he won looking to “arrange a joint governance for the document.” A Citadel spokesman said that Griffin “also proposed allowing each of the roughly 17,000 participants in the ConstitutionDAO group the right to generate a non-fungible token tied to the copy.” None of this came to fruition however.

The group is now in the process of endeavoring refunds (which will be net of expenses, called "gas fees"), which some have suggested could be onerous, especially relatively speaking for those who put in small amounts.

Meanwhile, and just to give you another reminder (as if you need one) of how wild and wooly this world is, ConstitutionDAO tokens (named People — like “we the People”) have become a "meme coin" a la Shiba Inu and dogecoin and were still trading as of yesterday morning. As CoinDesk reports: “PEOPLE has no utility and offers no governance rights to holders. But this hasn’t stopped crypto natives from trading up the token to a fully diluted market cap of $839 million as per CoinMarketCap. And the trading frenzy is leading to losses.” (Gee.)

Still, the people of ConstitutionDAO have proudly declared on Twitter (59,700 followers) this to be a victory of sorts and they’re right about that.

In other words, you best believe that Sotheby’s and the rest of the art world knows all about DAOs now. And that this won’t be the last DAO formed to try to buy a document or a piece of art.

And what about beyond that? What about buying a building, a company or even an NFL team (see below)? Why not? If this merry band could pull together $47 million in a few days on whim, imagine what one of these babies could do with say a Greta Thunberg or Amanda Gorman super-charging it?

At some point a DAO will likely make an even bigger splash.
KrauseHouseDAO — an homage of sorts to the late Chicago Bulls’ general manager Jerry Krause — recently tried to raise money to buy the Chicago Bulls. Or maybe, as Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman tweeted, a DAO might buy the Broncos. (Legendary Bronco quarterback John Elway, who missed out on a chance to buy a stake in 1998 and is reportedly interested in buying in today, may want to bone up on DAOs.)

DAOs may end up doing a million small things too. “The future of the concept of the DAO ends up becoming a group-chat of a few people who pull money together to do stuff,” says Taub. “[It’s] Web3 with an iMessage wallet attached to it. iMessage meets Venmo.”

For now at least, reverberations from the great Constitution auction of 2021 are still being felt. Bloomberg reports that “Michael Novogratz, billionaire founder of Galaxy Digital Holdings, said Thursday during the Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference that Griffin’s bid spoiled the party."

“ConstitutionDAO might have been the coolest thing that happened all year long in crypto, because it’s the pure essence of, ‘Here we are, we are doing it for the people, buying one of the founding documents, one of 13 Constitutions, and we’re gonna give it back to the people.’ Unfortunately, Ken Griffin played the Grinch — rich billionaire coming in to kind of spoil the party, in what I would call a tone-deaf move.”

Note that Novogratz playing the Everyman may strike some as ironic, given that one could argue the Princeton wrestling champ, cum National Guard helicopter pilot, cum Goldman Sachs’ partner, cum hedge fund honcho, cum Federal Reserve advisor is of the old elite world. But note too that Novo has been whole-hog into crypto for more than half a decade now.

So what about this idea generally that DAOs and crypto are disrupting Wall Street?

“It’s weird for me to see things like bitcoin and crypto being touted as an inequality breaker,” says Cullen Roche. "When you look at ownership of bitcoin it’s way more massively unequal even than stocks and bonds are at present. There’s also a lot of hype and narrative of some of these things that exaggerate the benefits of the existing system. Is this really going to overthrow the financial system? Do you think Ken Griffin will go away without a fight?”

There are problems aplenty to be worked out with DAOs. For example, here’s what Alexis Goldstein, the director of financial policy for the Open Markets Institute, says when asked if DAOs can serve as an alternative financial structure that decentralizes control: “In theory, but what I’ve seen in practice it more closely resembles what is seen in shareholder votes: The biggest shareholders have the biggest say.”

Then there are the risks that accompany DAOs as Roche notes: “You could have DAOs being run by Russian bots that are buying, who knows, public companies, doing weird things that could have a big impact on U.S. economic outcomes.”

Roche, Goldstein and others agree that what DAOs desperately need is regulation and governmental oversight. Problem is the politicians never seem to agree on anything — which disruptors love. Caveat Emptor.

<<<

>>> French climber pockets Mont Blanc gems after 2013 find


Yahoo Finance

December 4, 2021


https://news.yahoo.com/french-climber-pockets-mont-blanc-185326614.html


A treasure trove of emeralds, rubies and sapphires buried for decades on a glacier off France's Mont Blanc has finally been shared between the climber who discovered them and local authorities, eight years after they were found.

The mountaineer stumbled across the precious stones in 2013. They had remained hidden in a metal box that was on board an Indian plane that crashed in the desolate landscape some 50 years earlier.

"The stones have been shared this week" in two equal lots valued at around 150,000 euros ($169,000) each, Chamonix mayor Eric Fournier told AFP.

He said he was "very happy" that events had been brought to a conclusion, in particular for the climber who he praised for his "integrity" in turning his find in to police as required by law.

Two Air India planes crashed into Mont Blanc in 1950 and in 1966.

Over the years, climbers have routinely found debris, baggage and human remains from the aircraft.

In September 2012, India took possession of a bag of diplomatic mail from the Kangchenjunga, a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai which crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc on January 24, 1966.

The crash killed 117 people including the pioneer of India's nuclear programme, Homi Jehangir Bhabha.

Authorities believe the precious stones are likely to have come from that flight which had been en route from Mumbai to New York.

<<<

>>> 11 Most Famous Fakes in Art History


Austin Artists Market


https://www.austinartistsmarket.com/famous-fakes-art-history/


Art forgery has been around since, well, art. The ancient Romans crafted thousands of copies of Greek sculptures; ancient China is noted for its wide variety of forgeries, and modern art has seen more than its share of falsified work. Some forgeries are innocent enough, usually created by students copying a master, but others were created with the sole purpose of tricking an unsuspecting public into thinking they were the real deal. Some forgers are so good at what they do that it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between the original and the copy – leading to many museums, investors and galleries putting millions into complete fakes.

There have been thousands of documented cases of fraudulent works of art over the centuries. But here are some of the examples that involve the biggest battles over authentication, the strangest stories, and most famous artists in art history.

La Bella Principessa attributed to Leonardo da Vinci





Depending on who you ask, this painting is either a priceless masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci or a highly skilled copy worth just $20,000. The authenticity of this work has been a hotly contested topic since 2008 when art dealer Peter Silverman claimed he discovered it in the drawer of a Parisian friend’s home. The story, while romantic in nature, was untrue seeing as how the work had been auctioned and sold to Silverman several years previously.

Despite initial excitement about the work, as new ones by Leonardo rarely come on the market, the story might have ended there. However, several noted art historians and art experts came to support the theory that it might not be that of Leonardo. These experts claim to have science on their side, but so do their detractors and both have produced compelling evidence in support of their positions. The debate over the authenticity of this work could rage on indefinitely, but one thing is sure; whether the work was done by Leonardo or another artist, it’s a beautiful and skillfully drawn portrait.

Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus attributed to Vermeer





This painting was at the center of one of the most amazing art scandals of the 20th century. During WWII, the painting was brought to the attention of noted Vermeer expert Abraham Bredius, who upon seeing the work thought it could be none other than the genuine article and one of Vermeer’s most masterful works. Little doubt was expressed by the public regarding this opinion due to the respected position of Bredius and the relative obscurity of Vermeer at the time. The painting might have gone unnoticed as a forgery had the war not been going on. The forger of the work,

Han Van Meegeren was charged with collaborating with the enemy for selling what was believed to be an original Vermeer to Nazi Field Marshall Hermann Goering. To escape the death sentence this accusation held, Van Meegeren claimed that this painting was a forgery. To prove it, he painted another copy of Vermeer’s work under police guard. It turns out that he had not only forged these works but at least16 others through an ingenious process of painting and aging that allowed him to trick even the most knowledgeable art experts, duping them out of over $30 million in today’s money.

The Getty Kouros





The Getty Museum has a bit of a reputation for buying works that are of questionable provenance and the Kouros, purchased in 1985 for $7 million is no exception. Initially, the work was regarded as authentic through scientific analysis of the marble, yet it has been demonstrated that it is possible to age the stone by an artificial method, throwing the authenticity of the piece into question.

Further damning it is the assertions of several art historians that something simply isn’t right about the piece as it has a highly electric style that blends characteristics from several other known kouroi and displays inaccuracies in sculpting, motion, and symmetry of the figure. The Getty has subsequently had more studies done on the piece to prove it’s authenticity, but most scholars today believe the work to be a forgery. The sculpture is still on exhibit in the Getty with the label, “Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery.”

The Netherlandish Proverbs attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder





We often think of forgeries taking place many years after the artist has passed away, but popular artists have often reproduced within their own lifetimes and very soon afterward. In this case, the copyist was Breugel’s own son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger. This younger artist made numerous copies of his father’s work, including this popular painting, as well as a landscape that now hangs in the Delporte Collection in Brussels.

Most interestingly, not all copies the son made of this father’s work include the same proverbs, and often are not exact copies. While imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, in this case it served to confuse and perhaps mislead art buyers. While Brueghel spent many years copying his father’s works, he also enjoyed a successful career in his own right, painting similar scenes though many say, without the same subtlety and humanism as that of his father and in a much more idealized manner.

Portrait of Alexander Mornauer attributed to Hans Holbein





This portrait further proves that even major museums can make mistakes when it comes to collecting fake works. At face value, this work appeared to be the product of well-known German artist Hans Holbein the Younger when it was purchased by the National Gallery in London. Yet it had been altered during the 18th century, a time when Holbein’s work was in great demand.

A layer of paint over the original changed the color of the background and altered the man’s hat, something that didn’t come to light until the work could be examined through modern methods. Oddly enough, the work is just as valuable as an anonymous work than as a Holbein, as portraits from this period aren’t common. The work was recently exhibited in a show entitled “Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries.”

An Allegory attributed to Sandro Botticelli





In 1874, the National Gallery purchased two works attributed to iconic Italian painter Sandro Botticelli, well before the advent of modern authentication technologies. One of these paintings, Venus and Mars turned out to be authentic and is one of the museum’s most prized paintings. Yet the other, though at the time to be a companion painting to Venus and Mars, was discovered to be done by a follower in the style of the master, rather than by Botticelli himself. While still skillfully executed, the work doesn’t have the value or the prestige afforded to Botticelli’s work. Ironically, the museum paid more for the fake than for the real thing.

The Freida Kahlo Archive





It’s not necessarily uncommon for one or two works by an artist to be found to be fake, but it’s very strange indeed when an entire collection of paintings, letters, and belongings are called out as being inauthentic– but that’s just what happened in this case. The collection came to light in 2009 when a book was slated to be published about the 1,200 or so articles it contains. Art historians, dealers, artists, bloggers, and Kahlo experts have come out to denounce the collection, saying it’s full of fakes and that the owners are either victims or perpetrators of one of the biggest hoaxes in art history.

The collectors, The Noyolas, claim that these experts simply don’t want to alter the public image of Kahlo, something they believe this collection just might do. Proof exists on both sides as few experts have taken a close look at the collection but the provenance of many of the items is shaky at best. Only time will tell whether or not this archive goes down as an amazing discovery or an amazing forgery.

Watercolors attributed to Marc Chagall





In the 1960s, a young art dealer named David Stein sold three watercolors, purportedly by Russian artist Marc Chagall to an art dealer in New York. The works weren’t authentic, however, as Stein had painted them that day and created forged letters of authentication as well. Stein may have got off scot-free if it had not been for a chance occurrence.

Marc Chagall just happened to meet with the dealer who bought those watercolors on that very same day, immediately revealing that they were fakes. Stein went on to serve several years in prison but the incident boosted his reputation so much that he was able to strike up a career as an original artist upon his release.

Sculptured Tomb attributed to Mino da Fiesole





Alceo Dossena was one of the most famous forgers of sculpture in the 20th century, carving many masterful reproductions of everything from Greek statues to Renaissance tombs. Dossena and his dealers successfully fooled art buyers, galleries and museums around the world that his work was that of artists like Pisano, Martini, and Donatello– very clearly demonstrating his high level of skill as a forger.

One such work, a sculptured tomb attributed to Mino da Fiesole eventually made its way to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts– a costly mistake for the museum as they paid $100,000 for the forgery. Dossena, frustrated by his dealers taking nearly all of the profits revealed the ruse and sued his dealers, claiming he was unaware the works were being sold under false pretenses. He was cleared of all charges and went back to creating original works. The museum refused to believe the tomb was a fake until Dossena produced photographs of it in progress. Many of his works are thought to still be out there, circulating as genuine articles.

Henri Leroy attributed to Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot





To limit forgeries to this artist to only one work is hard, but this particular forgery is done by one of the most masterful forgers of all time making it stand out. Forgeries of Corot’s works are not uncommon. In fact, some suspect that he is the most widely forged artist of all time, producing only 3,000 works in his lifetime while over 100,000 works in the United States alone are attributed to him. It might have something to do with his willingness to let others borrow original works to copy for study or his style that is relatively easy to emulate.

Regardless, this particular forgery is a masterful one done by Eric Hebborn, and after being caught published a book on his life as a forger. In it, he showcases his copy of Corot’s work alongside the original, challenging art experts to tell the difference. And that was the problem. Hebborn was so good at forging works that the art market is still haunted by doubts that seemingly authentic works could, in fact, be his handiwork. To this day, he is regarded for this work and the thousands of others he completed in his lifetime, as one of the best forgers of all time.

<<<

>> lasted two years <<


And authentications can be disputed, as has happened with the new 'Da Vinci' that appeared a while back (see below). Even a casual art fan can see that this one has problems, and the consensus of the experts can change over time, so 'buyer beware' -


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi_(Leonardo)

WOW and "An authentication process that lasted two years."

>>> A sketch bought for $30 at a house clearance sale is a 500-year-old masterpiece that could sell for $50 million, say experts


MSN News


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/a-sketch-bought-for-dollar30-at-a-house-clearance-sale-is-a-500-year-old-masterpiece-that-could-sell-for-dollar50-million-say-experts/ar-AARc4rR?ocid=uxbndlbing


A Massachusetts man purchased an unassuming sketch of a mother and child for $30 at an estate sale.

The sketch was found to be a previously unknown work of German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer.

Experts believe the drawing could be worth up to $50 million.
Asketch purchased for $30 at a house clearance sale in Massachusetts is believed to be a rare artwork worth as much as $50 million, reports say.

Experts identified the drawing of a mother and child as an original by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, The Art Newspaper reported.

An unnamed man purchased the sketch in Concord, Massachusett.

The drawing had belonged to the late architect Jean-Paul Carlhain, whose children mistakenly believed it was a 20th-century reproduction of a Dürer.

The buyer casually stored the unframed drawing for two years until Clifford Schorer, a senior partner at the London art dealer Agnews, heard about the sketch's existence and asked to view it.

"It was an incredible moment when I saw the Dürer," Schorer told The Art Newspaper. "It was either the greatest forgery I have ever seen — or a masterpiece."

Schorer believes it "could fetch a record price" for a work by an Old Master.

After an authentication process that lasted two years, leading experts have confirmed the drawing is a previously unknown Dürer, the paper reported.

Scholars pointed to the "AD" monogram inscribed on the work, one of the most famous signatures in art history, which had been written with the same ink used in the drawing.

Secondly, the drawing had been made on paper watermarked with a trident, which was used by Dürer in over 200 known works.

The drawing, which has been titled The Virgin and Child With a Flower on a Grassy Bench (1503), is believed to be a preliminary sketch for his later watercolor, The Virgin Among a Multitude of Animals.

The sketch is on display at Agnews Gallery in London.

The original buyer has been given a $100,000 advance, The Art Newspaper reported, and he will receive a further undisclosed amount when the Agnews sale is concluded.

<<<

>>> Lab-Grown Diamonds Are Latest Victims of China’s Power Crisis


Bloomberg News

October 31, 2021


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-31/lab-grown-diamonds-are-latest-victims-of-china-s-power-crisis?srnd=premium


Production of jewelry-grade gems falls by as much as 15%

Nearly half of all synthetic diamonds are produced in China


The lab-grown diamond industry is the latest sector to feel the effects of China’s energy crisis -- and if the situation gets worse, consumers may find that special Christmas gift is suddenly a lot more expensive.

Output of jewelry-grade gems has dropped by about 10% to 15% for the past month or so, said Liu Houxiang, a consultant at the National Gemstone Testing Center, in a telephone interview. Roughly 7 million carats of jewelry-quality synthetic diamonds are produced globally each year, according to Liu, of which 3 million come from China.

More affordable and more sustainable than their mined counterparts, laboratory-grown diamonds are becoming increasingly popular. The stones are manufactured using extreme heat and pressure to mimic the process behind natural diamonds. A small sliver of an existing diamond (the “seed”) is placed in a reactor with pure graphite carbon or a carbon-rich gas. At high temperatures, atoms of carbon become attached to the seed, and within weeks a gemstone is formed.

Diamonds are far from the only product affected by China’s power shortage, which has been rippling across the country since the summer due to soaring coal prices. Activity in the country’s vast factory sector contracted in September for the first time since the pandemic began; metal producers, garment factories, sheep farmers and Apple suppliers have all been hit.

As the energy crisis continues, some synthetic diamond producers have announced plans to raise prices without giving specific details, Liu said. But the impact is “not too significant so far” and prices remain unchanged for now.

Still, he added, government policies around power supply restrictions remain uncertain going forward.

<<<

>>> Invest in iconic paintings by world-famous artists


MoneyWise

Oct 6, 2021


https://moneywise.com/investing/investing-basics/ways-to-become-a-millionaire-with-little?utm_source=syn_oath_mon&utm_medium=B&utm_campaign=19365&utm_content=oath_mon_19365_intriguing+alternative


You might think that investing in fine art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol is only an option for the ultra-rich.

But with an investing platform called Masterworks, you can invest in iconic artworks too, just like Jeff Bezos and Peggy Guggenheim.

On average, contemporary artworks appreciate in value by 14% per year, which is significantly higher than the average returns of 9.5% you’d see with the S&P 500.

And investing with Masterworks lets you bypass a lot of the drawbacks of art investing — you won’t need to scour garage sales looking for a lost work by a master, and you won’t have to scramble to find a buyer if you need to sell your shares fast.

Masterworks is the one of the first art investment platforms, and it’s available by invite only.

If you want to own a piece of art history — and take the next step towards your first million — You can request an invitation by clicking this link.

<<<

>>> How France Turned the Humble Roundabout Into a Showcase for Art

From children’s boats to snails and a giant thumb, the spaces drivers pass around are now islands of creativity.


Bloomberg

Gaelle Faure

October 9, 2021


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-09/how-france-turned-the-humble-roundabout-into-a-showcase-for-art





"L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped" in Paris, a posthumous project from artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.


Thousands of visitors recently flocked to France’s most famous roundabout — Place Charles de Gaulle in Paris — to see its centerpiece Arc de Triomphe wrapped in fabric by the late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

But, away from international crowds, there are myriad lesser known projects that dot the islands of more humble traffic circles across France. A construction frenzy in recent decades to reduce accidents opened up the opportunity for creativity: how to use tens of thousands of empty spaces that range in diameter from just a few meters to the length of two soccer fields.

Rather than simply filling them with drab concrete or a bit of landscaping, many towns have turned to public art. Usually in the form of oversized sculptures — and sometimes not without their critics — works range from the quaint to the surreal, from the nostalgic to the aspirational.

Drivers get to look at a chair fit for a giant, a snail admiring itself in a mirror, a winged man about to take flight, a chain-link tower of Babel, or disembodied hands prying open an oyster. Or at least they get to try and figure out what they are in the short time it takes to drive around them.





The paper boats by artist Jean-Luc Plé in La Tremblade, France.

“Municipalities jumped at the chance to showcase a local identity and create a sort of postcard image to commemorate the past, for example if they were once a mining town or a fishing village — or, on the contrary, they might try to play up their modernity,” said Éric Alonzo, an architecture professor who has written books on the history of the roundabout and the architecture of roads.

One example is La Tremblade on France’s Atlantic coast. In 2004, Jean-Pierre Tallieu, the mayor at the time, was faced with an empty circle of dirt to fill after the regional government built a roundabout on a road running through his town.

He wanted to complement the local beaches visited by families, something to “stick in children’s minds.” “I came up with the idea of building big paper boats—the kind we all learn to make as kids, using lined paper from school,” he said. Today, tourists stop to take pictures and locals use the boats when giving directions.

The artist behind the sculpture is Jean-Luc Plé, who is often described as the “king of roundabouts.” A former Renault factory worker turned commercial sculpture maker, he then segued into roundabout art, creating dozens of pieces across the country.





Artist Jean-Luc Plé’s famous snail sculpture on the Lorignac roundabout, France.

Before embarking on a project, Plé has a chat with the local mayors and asks them what their town celebrates, what its story is. “Sometimes they’re not sure, but then you dig a bit and it turns out that they might produce the most beautiful snails,” he said.

He then draws up several ideas before they agree on a price, which he says can range from 30,000 to 50,000 euros ($34,700 to $57,800). All his pieces are made of polyurethane foam, meaning that should a car crash into them, the material will safely disintegrate. His next roundabout project is a giant hot air balloon, which will soon go up in Val des Vignes, a town in the southwest that hosts a ballooning competition.

Learning about a place through its roundabout art is part of what fascinates collectors like Yang Xiao, a Chinese photographer and designer who lives in Spain. Yang has taken more than 2,200 screenshots from Google Street View, cataloging them on a worldwide map and sharing her favorites on Instagram in an ongoing project that picked up speed during Covid-19 lockdowns.

She divided them into categories such as religion, the military, industry, agriculture or famous people, food and sports. Based on her online travels, she said Spain and France seem to have the greatest store of roundabout art and that developed countries tend to have more contemporary sculptures.

Her favorite in France is what looks like an aluminum plane, created in 2004 in Gometz-la-Ville in the southern suburbs of Paris. It’s an homage to the inventor of the Aérotrain, a hovertrain prototype tested in the 1960s but scrapped in favor of developing the country’s rapid rail network.





The sculpture in Gometz-la-Ville, France.

“The airplane is a very popular topic for roundabout sculpture,” she said. “Many countries have it, but this one is the most beautiful to me.”

France could well be the world champion in roundabouts, but the truth is nobody knows exactly how many there are. There are no precise figures because there’s no central system for authorizing or tracking them, according to Marina Louvet, spokesperson for Cerema, a public agency that studies the country’s road network.

The only recent attempt at an estimate comes from the blog Beyond the Maps, which used OpenStreetMap data to calculate the number of roundabouts across Europe. France came out on top, with more than 65,000 roundabouts as of 2018 — by far the highest total.

Professor Alonzo’s book retraces how, long before the advent of the automobile, roundabouts were prevalent in French gardens such as at the castle of Versailles, and how at the start of the 20th century, the modern roundabout — with one-way-traffic — was simultaneously invented in France and in the U.S.

The system was later perfected in the U.K., giving right-of-way to cars within the roundabout, and in the mid-1980s began spreading like wildfire in France. At the same time, the country was decentralizing, which gave local authorities more control. “They were able to hit two birds with one stone: create new roads that improved safety and also decorate them as they liked,” Alonzo said.

David Worthington, a British artist and lecturer who built a sculpture of a UFO on a roundabout in the English coastal city of Southampton, also points to France’s long tradition of investment in the arts. “France’s history of patronage, from the salons to today, ties in to why nearly each village now has its own sculptural commission,” he said.





Le Pouce sculpture in Marseille, France.

Roundabout art has its share of critics in France, with some decrying the use of public funds, and others disparaging the sculptures as eyesores. A lobby group representing taxpayers even held a contest for the “worst roundabout in France.”

Others are more measured. Joëlle Zask, a philosophy professor who wrote a book on outdoor art, doesn’t see roundabouts as generally conducive to creating successful pieces of public art. “It’s a space that is isolated, inaccessible to the public,” she said.

Still, there are some roundabout pieces that Zask appreciates because they relate their surroundings. César’s giant thumb in the city of Marseille makes her think of a hitchhiker. She also likes Patrick Raynaud’s carousel of road signs in Villeurbanne next door to Lyon that points haphazardly to cities across the world.

Raynaud’s piece is frequently cited as a success, but it was not always loved. When it was first installed in 1989, replacing several flower boxes, locals defaced it in protest.

“But it caused a lot of discussion, and after a few months, the same people who’d protested went to the mayor and said, ‘let’s just put the flower boxes in the street and bring back the sculpture’,” Raynaud says. “So we gladly rebuilt it.”

<<<

E-waste, sign of the time, boo. Any way to make money off of it?

This Year's E-Waste to Outweigh Great Wall of China

https://www.ecowatch.com/e-waste-great-wall-of-china-2655291965.html

October 14th is International E-Waste Day, and, to raise awareness about this growing problem, the waste electrical and electronic equipment forum, or WEEE Forum, has published an alarming statistic.

In 2021, human beings will discard an estimated 57.4 million tonnes (approximately 63.3 million U.S. tons) of electronic waste. That waste will outweigh the Great Wall of China, the world's heaviest human construction. This is why the WEEE Forum is calling for these items to be repaired or recycled instead of discarded.

"This year's focus for International E-Waste Day is the crucial role each of us has in making circularity a reality for e-products," WEEE Forum Director General Pascal Leroy said in a statement. "This is more important than ever as our Governments go into COP26 to discuss global action to reduce carbon emissions. Every tonne of WEEE recycled avoids around 2 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If we all do the right thing with our e-waste we help to reduce harmful CO2 emissions."

2021's mountain of waste didn't grow out of nowhere. In 2019, humans generated 53.6 million tonnes (approximately 59.1 million tons), up 21 percent from 2014. If nothing changes, that number is supposed to hit 74 million tonnes (approximately 81.6 million tons) by 2030, meaning that e-waste is growing by about three to four percent every year.

WEEE Forum attributes this growth to the growing consumption of electronics, smaller periods between new product releases and limited options for repairing broken items.

One example of this cycle is the development and marketing of cell phones.

"Fast mobile phone development, for example, has led to a market dependency on rapid replacement of older devices," Leroy told BBC News.

In the U.S., around 151 million phones end up in landfills or incinerators every year, which amounts to 416,000 a day, WEEE Forum said. Overall, only 17.4 percent of electronic waste is properly recycled worldwide.

This is a major waste both financially and ecologically.

"A tonne of discarded mobile phones is richer in gold than a tonne of gold ore," Dr. Ruediger Kuehr, director of the UN's Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme, said in a statement. "Embedded in 1 million cell phones, for example, are 24 kg of gold, 16,000 kg of copper, 350 kg of silver, and 14 kg of palladium — resources that could be recovered and returned to the production cycle. And if we fail to recycle these materials, new supplies need to be mined, harming the environment."

Recovering these metals from electronic waste would also burn fewer greenhouse gas emissions than mining for new materials.

In honor of International E-Waste Day, the WEEE Forum is calling on individuals to do their part by making sure they dispose of their waste correctly.

"We hope to raise awareness among citizens of the importance of returning electricals that are no longer functioning or are unused," Leroy told Australia's ABC News. "In Europe, one out of seven electricals in the household is sitting in drawers because they are not used or not functioning."

However, industry and policymakers have important roles to play in creating the recycling and repair systems consumers can easily use.

"Consumers want to do the right thing but need to be adequately informed and a convenient infrastructure should be easily available to them so that disposing of e-waste correctly becomes the social norm in communities," Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum said in a statement.