Jun 18, 2022 3 min read Pieces of Eight

Pieces of Eight: $22 Billion Boat, Surf for £65k Turf and Warhol Eclipses Auction Estimates

🌱 A piece of grass from Liam Gallagher’s Knebworth concert has been listed as sold on eBay for £65,900. Lucky seller David Watson 35, from Stourbridge, had the bright idea of listing the grass on the poplar marketplace. Titled ‘Grass From Liam Gallagher at Knebworth 2022’, potential buyers flocked to the auction, with a total of 120 bids made.

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Our Take: Fanatical devotion can create mind blowing results. David initially posted the Grass for £5 'as a joke' but what he stumbled into was an incredibly passionate, global fanbase for whom all things remotely related to Oasis have exceptional intrinsic value. Of course it remains to be seen whether the buyer follows through and transfers the cash, but regardless it's a stunning example of star power.

‌‌⛵ Centuries-old shipwrecks found off Colombian coast could be worth billions of dollars! Colombian naval officials conducting underwater monitoring of the long-sunken San José galleon say they have discovered two other historical shipwrecks nearby. The wrecks, a colonial boat and a schooner, are thought to be from around the same period as Colombia's war for independence from Spain, some 200 years ago. The San José galleon, located in 2015 was sunk by the British in 1708 near Colombia's Caribbean port of Cartagena

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Our Take: Could this aquatic find find blow records out of the water? If the final haul ends up anywhere near the estimated $22bn, it is an astonishing figure, eclipsing the $500m 'Black Swan Project' Discovery. A project mired in mystery and controversy following a battle between the salvagers and the Spanish Government.

A recent Phillips auction saw an incredible performance from a selection of Andy Warhol prints. 24 Pieces (including a Reigning Queen) were included during the event on the 14-15th June with a combined top estimate of approximately £875k, the result blew this out of the water with a combined sale value in excess of £1.7m!

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Our Take: Warhol continues to live up to his moniker as the most influential artist of the 20th Century. This auction follows the astonishing $195m sale of Blue Shot Marilyn we shared a few weeks ago, the breadth of Warhols work and focus on iconic subject material which had personal meaning for him continues to resonate long after his 1987 death. We're privileged to be offering one of our own, which you can part own and visit at our Strand office in Central London.

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The next Showpiece selector is here! Follow this link to flick through the twenty items and share you opinions.

In the last poll you voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Eid Mar Roman Coin for which we proceeded to bid £1m, unfortunately, we were beaten with a bid of over £2m! Also garnering 85% of the vote was 'Darwin - Origin of Species' with honourable mentions going to Banksy and Batman No.1 Comic Book!

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🖌 Showpiece number three Andy Warhol's 'Reigning Queens' is here. We're releasing a new article every week for our collectors to enjoy, check out Friday's 'Warhol - The Phenomenon' here

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Early Access

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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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