Interesting Facts

A Star Wars toy cost £1.50 when it came out 35 years ago, and has sold at auction for £18,000. (Collector, Craig Stevens, from Croydon, bought the figure, which is of bounty hunter Boba Fett, still in its original packaging, for £50 in 1990. Before you go rummaging in your attic, the figure was in mint condition and in its original packaging.  In other words, no child had ever played with it.  Haven't these people seen Toy Story!) 

The world's most expensive diamond (to date) was sold at Sotheby's in Geneva, for ... wait for it - £52m. (The Pink Star, which would look good on any Barbie doll, is supposedly the largest internally flawless fancy pink vivid diamond (measuring 2.69cm x 2.06cm) that the Gemmological Institute of American has ever graded. Estimated to sell for at least £38 million, the diamond attracted four bidders and finally sold for $83,187,381 (£52, 024,735.83), which is a world auction record for a diamond and any gemstone or jewel. You can watch the insanity here:- )

The iconic artwork The Scream, created by Norwegian expressionist artist Edvard Munch, has sold for just under $120m (£74m). (This makes it the most expensive art work ever sold at auction, the previous record was for Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, which sold for $106.5m in 2010. There are actually 4 versions of this pastel (yes it's no oil painting), but this is the only one owned privately, and it bears a poem written by the artist on the frame. The poem reads: "I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city. "My friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." If anyone had been nearby when I heard how much this piece of paper had sold for, they would have heard a scream passing through my ho...

In 2007 a rare first edition, from 1847, of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights sold at auction for £114,000. (It had been expected to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000. So a nice surprise for the owner.)

EBay can become an addiction - the Priory clinic is now admitting people with an online auction habit. (My name is Lynne and I shop!)