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Pieces of Eight: Blue Marilyn to fetch $200m, Charizard burns $420k and an expensive litter of Tiger clubs

Pieces of Eight: Blue Marilyn to fetch $200m, Charizard burns $420k and an expensive litter of Tiger clubs

🖼 Andy Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) will lead Christie's New York's marquee sales week in May. The work, which was consigned by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, carries an estimate of US $200 million.

If the Marilyn Monroe screen print reaches Christie's estimate, it will nearly double Warhol's current auction record of $105.4 million, which was set when the much larger work Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) sold at Sotheby's in 2013.

“The spectacular portrait isolates the person and the star: Marilyn the woman is gone; the terrible circumstances of her life and death are forgotten. All that remains is the enigmatic smile that links her to another mysterious smile of a distinguished lady, the Mona Lisa.”

- Georg Frei, Chairman of the Board, Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation

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Our Take: We invariably find ourselves circling back to stories at Showpiece, Monroe's was well documented for better or worse, but the painting has one of it's own. When asked by performance artist Dorothy Podber if she could 'shoot' the canvas, Warhol presumably thought she referred to camera and film. The fact she produced a pistol and blasted a hole in the forehead adds star quality, much like the Banksy and the shredder.

💵 In a bid to catch all the Pokémon, someone just paid $420,000 at auction for a Charizard card.  The rare 1999 Pokémon Base Set Shadowless 1st Edition Holo Charizard card was sold last week in the PWCC March Premier Auction. "The sale sets the all-time record for a base set Charizard card," the auction house said in a statement.

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Our Take: Our Take: Rarity and provenance are a must for items to demand the largest valuations. This particular example has been authenticated by PSA and awarded a PSA 10 grading, an accolade less than 0.4% can boast, demonstrating that even if production runs are as high as 3000, significant value can remain.

⛳️ If one of Tiger Woods’ backup Scotty Cameron putters sold for nearly $400,000 at auction last summer, what might a whole set of irons and wedges that Woods used go for? Golden Age Auctions reckon the set will be the first to break the $1 million mark!

That's it for this week, thanks as always for reading and if you have any comments please get in touch via hello@showpiece.com.

The Showpiece Team

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