If You’re a Collector, Here’s a Special Item for You

July 27th, 2010

Elvis Presley’s piano is coming up for sale

Dedicated collectors will understand the importance of this news and will start thinking about how high they will be prepared to bid and then how they can put the finances in place in case their bid is successful. There will be many different bidders on an item such as this: collectors of Elvis memorabilia, piano collectors, Rock and Roll collectors and others. This sale will arouse a great deal of interest.

Elvis Memorabilia

The piano and the purchase agreement for the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Graceland mansion and a letter Presley wrote in 1955 to his then girlfriend shortly after entering the US army, are among the highlights of the 270-lot Elvis Memorabilia auction on August 14. Doug Norwine, director of music and entertainment at Heritage Auctions said the piano was “an emotionally-charged prized possession of the King himself”. Other items include Presley’s personal address and phone book, a pair of custom gold-framed sunglasses and his gun.

The piano

Elvis Presley’s white grand piano and his 1955 contract with RCA Records are going up for auction in Memphis next month, with the piano expected to fetch more than $1-million. The white Knabe piano was owned and played by Presley for a decade. The singer bought it in 1957 from the Ellis auditorium in Memphis where it had been played by visiting gospel performers for more than 20 years. The piano stood in Graceland’s music room until 1969.

Auction sales

Auction sales are as old as the hills and are the hunting grounds of collectors. It was the coming of the Internet that changed the collecting habits of many collectors and lured many into the world of collecting. Here were unlimited auction sales that anyone could attend without leaving home and where he or she could dabble in unlimited collection subjects. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the notable success stories of the dot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries.

The beginnings of eBay

The online auction website was founded as AuctionWeb in San Jose, California, in 1995, by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar. The very first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers.” Omidyar was astute enough to understand that anything could be sold on his auction site; there is a collector for everything.

Anything goes

Anything and everything can be sold on eBay including services and intangibles. Large international companies, such as IBM, sell their newest products and offer services on eBay using competitive auctions and fixed-priced storefronts. In June 2005, there were more than 15,000 members in the eBay Developers Program, comprising a broad range of companies creating software applications to support eBay buyers and sellers as well as eBay Affiliates.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 2:53 am and is filed under Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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