What price the Mummy's head? At Heritage Auctions, it was $31K+ last January...

March 04, 2010

Written by Yinan Wang

(It is my pleasure to turn the blog over today to Yinan Wang, a new-ish addition to Heritage's Natural History Department, and - as you'll see by reading below - an entertaining blogger. I can confirm everything that Yinan writes about in the following post, especially the cool creepiness of the mummy head, and how working at Heritage - all of Heritage - can often feel like that last scene in Raiders of The Lost Ark, when Indy is watching the ark as it is buried by a forklift in a the back of a non-descript warehouse somewhere in Washington, D.C. The difference here, though, is that things are only put away briefly - until bought at auction - and they are relatively easy to get to - as long as you know someone with security clearance and you never, ever, touch! Trust me, when I get to make my happy rounds to any number of Heritage departments to look at the amazing stuff, well, let's just say that my hands are always behind my back and I do the appreciating with my eyes. Thanks Yinan, for the Natural History update. Read on and enjoy! -Noah Fleisher)

How much is a human head worth? About $31,070 if it happens to be the head of an Egyptian mummy.

Before I go any further, I apologize for the late blog entry; after the January auction the staff here at the Natural History department disperses around the world to look for exotic pieces for the next auction and I didn’t get much internet access in Marrakech. Now that I’ve had a chance to dust off my boots, let us examine some of the interesting pieces from the January Signature Natural History auction.

Back to the head: yes, the head dates from sometime between the New Kingdom and Ptolemaic eras (1500-300 BC) and fetched $30K+ after some fierce bidding. I’m actually quite glad it’s no longer sitting in the office; it was getting kinda spooky walking past his eyeless stare on the way to the coffee room every day. If I knew my head was going to be on someone’s shelf in 3000 years, I’d be rather annoyed.

Another fun item that sold was a 9 foot tall Russian Brown Bear that went for $9,560. It was rather entertaining watching people try to figure out how to move it out of the warehouse. You can just hear the bear saying, with a perfect Russian accent: “In Mother Russia, you are not moving bear, bear is moving you!”

Eventually the bear was successfully moved onto a truck before it could crush capitalism.

There were many exciting fossil pieces sold at the auction as well, including a beautiful Pteranodon from Kansas that went for $33,460. The amazing piece looks great and it would look nice on my wall (secret Santas take note).

Some other great pieces that went to good homes? T-rex teeth, dinosaur bones, fossil fish, etc.

The mineral section brought the highest prices of the show, with the top bid being a giant aquamarine crystal from Pakistan, bringing in $143,400. It essentially looked like a nice big piece of blue ice bigger than a flashlight. Although minerals don’t quite have the organic aspect of the other Natural History categories, they’re generally very pretty.

So what is it like working in Natural History? Remember that final scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where the box containing the Ark is wheeled into a warehouse full of boxes? Yes, it’s like that. Our shelves are chuck full of oddities, taxidermies, dinosaurs, crystal skulls, and the occasional human head.

At the moment we’re working on processing our new inventory for the next Signature Natural History auction; June 6th 2010 in Beverly Hills. I’ll post again before the auction to give you a preview of some of the special pieces on our shelves! Until then, happy bidding!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Yinan Wang

From the DNA of this Sabre Tooth Tiger skull…

April 21, 2009
Posted by Noah

… I could create the ultimate pet. You can bet no one would mess with me. The problem really is that I’d need to learn extract the DNA, then how to clone the thing, then train it, then figure out the secret to time travel – I’ve been watching Lost, so I know a little bit already – so I could go back to find my seven year old self that day on the playground at Northrich Elementary when those grubby boys chased me, beat me up and tossed me into the bushes because I was the new kid in school. Leaving my Sabre Tooth to defend the younger version of my self, and aid in my subsequent quest for world domination, I would then travel back into time to finish this blog post, which the entire planet would be commanded to read.

First, though, I have to come up with a quarter of a million bucks to buy this thing from the Heritage May Natural History auction. So if anybody wants part of my empire – I’d be willing to give Australia, but not New Zealand – then give me a buzz and we’ll talk about partnering…

Okay, so it’s late at night as I write this, the Mavericks have just taken a terrible pounding from San Antonio and I’m a little bleary-eyed. I’ve spent the last half hour looking over the newly posted catalog for the Natural History auction and, as you might expect, there’s some pretty amazing stuff. And it’s not just dinosaur bones.

In fact, the most compelling stuff in this auction – as it strikes me, of course – comes in the gems and minerals categories. This is stuff that is truly sculpture wrought from a divine hand. There are more than a few I'd love to have (and will have once I’ve got the Saber Tooth) had I the do-re-mi. Chief among them is this Large Rhodochrosite on Quartz with Tetrahedrite and Pyrite. Or, as I like to call it, Pretty Red Rock on Wild Rice.

Just look at this thing. I know it was shaped, at least somewhat, by human hands, but that depth of color and density of material can only come from one place, and it takes thousands and thousands of years to create. Pretty cool stuff. What you may not know about it is that the crystal is actually the secret key to an alien hideout hidden deep in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Some even call it a Fortress of Solitude… It’s a steal at upwards of $400,000.

I also have to say I’m somewhat partial to this Superb Precious Gem Ammonite, which looks like a bowl of celestial Fruit Loops carelessly discarded in the middle of Saturday morning cartoons by the hand of some child of astral beings – I told you I was tired. Despite my feeble metaphor, you get the picture. And for $30,000 you can have the piece.

This multi-color Tourmaline is also pretty awesome, relatively affordable at about $3,000, and vaguely reminiscent of the Bomb Pops I used to covet so from the ice cream man in mid-July.

I’m not exactly sure how you go about finding these things raw, or even about acquiring them in such quantity and quality for an auction, but I’m sure glad I work in a place where I can be the beneficiary of others who know exactly how to do just that. Here’s one more link to the catalog for the May sale. Check it out for your daily fix of beauty.

Dino teeth at Heritage this weekend, Jan. 17. Wish I was still a kid.

Jan. 14, 2009
Posted By Noah

A kid between the ages of 7 and 13, to be exact, as that’s the demographic that stands to benefit the most from the preview this Saturday, Jan. 17, of the Natural History Auction, when the company gives away a free dinosaur tooth to the first 100 eligible kids – not employees, mind you, specifically those well over the right age, even if they really really want one… Please, please, please?

These teeth are from the ferocious and massive Spinosauraus, the largest meat eater to over roam the planet that existed a mere blink in the continuum of time and space ago, 67 million years. It’s rare to find the teeth of such a thing, and awesomely cool, if I can sound like I really am 10 years old. To further digress, the whole auction is full of amazing stuff, and not just dino teeth, and I’m not saying it just because I work at Heritage. Anyone can come and see the preview this weekend, and I suggest you do. Then you’ll see what I mean.

The star of the show is a massive, almost fully intact Triceratops skull. This thing is as wide as a Formula One race car across the front, and as long as an NBA player is tall. It’s a thing of superb intimidation and great beauty, and my first thought when I saw it is that I wished I was a genetic scientist who was capable of cloning a whole new triceratops from the DNA of the skull, whereby I could walk it on weekends, tie it to a tree in nearby Reverchon Park while I’m at work and make sure nobody ever messes with me – not that any really ever does anyway. I’m just saying…

There’s also a huge mammoth tusk, an amazing Saber Tooth Tiger Skull, a fully intact flying dinosaur skeleton and pieces of the moon and the planet Mars, as Natural History Director David Herskowitz always likes to stress. Did I mention, as I buff my nails on my shirt, that Heritage is the world leader in high-end natural history auctions.

The details of the auction can be picked up by clicking here. The details of the preview are also online, as is the address and full hours. Visitor parking is available in the garage attached to the building, enter on Maple Avenue.