Celebrity estate sale finds range from the totally bizarre (think Truman Capote’s ashes) to the completely mundane (Betty White’s precious pet puzzle collection, for instance). Spending loads of money on used stuff from a celebrity may seem odd to some, but there’s undeniably a market for it. For shoppers, these purchases can be a way to cement an emotional connection with a favorite entertainer or artist, or at the very least, they can serve as conversation starters that create a more meaningful living space.
There is no one definitive experience of the celebrity estate sale or auction. You can end up at a highly curated auction, held by Christie’s, Sotheby’s, or some other auction house, with no way to guarantee you won’t get priced out of the lot you have your eye on. You could attend the estate sale of a beloved celebrity who’s passed away, or to a sale hosted by someone who’s simply trying to clean out their garage. You could go to an in-person estate sale, with a mountain of goods big and small to sort through and the constant fear that you’re missing something in another room or beneath the pile of stuff a fellow shopper is hoarding for their own perusal.
Still, the uncertainty is a major part of what makes the experience worthwhile, and at the end of the day when you end up with something you never thought you’d call your own, whatever your specific anxieties were will have been proven worthwhile. Below, we spoke to real people about their celebrity estate sale and auction finds, and learned more about what compelled them to seek out objects that once belonged to their idols.
Truman Capote’s stuffed animals
In 1999, screenwriter and television producer Stephanie Savage received the catalog for Marilyn Monroe’s estate auction as a gift from her then boyfriend. “Flipping through the catalog, I got to the auction lot that was her makeup case and I just totally burst into tears,” she says. “It just felt like it had so much energy inside of it. It was so intimate that it just really moved me.” In the 25 years since, Savage has remained drawn to the sense of intimacy that estate sales offer. Her home contains a handful of storied finds and her Marilyn Monroe catalog has gained more than a few companions. Over the years, she’s secured a variety of auction catalogs, including those of Elizabeth Taylor, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, for her collection.
In 2006, Savage had her first experience shopping an estate sale at the Truman Capote auction held by Bonhams. The lot she was immediately drawn to was a collection of five stuffed animals from the ’50s and ’60s. Though she worried they would end up being bid up out of reach, they ended up being “highly affordable” and she’d held onto them for nearly 18 years. “Ever since then I’ve just always felt an understanding of the power of being able to have that connection with someone who you really admire, whose personality you’re fascinated by,” she says. “To be able to bring that energy into your own home and share it with your friends and family and your guests, I think it’s something that’s really special.”
Bidding on the Joan Didion auction was quite a contrast from the experience at the Capote auction. The item she was most drawn to, Didion’s peacock chair, ended up selling for 40 times its estimate. Sitting at her laptop watching the bids tick up, “it quickly became clear that all reason had gone out the window for every bidder. Things were going extremely high and emotion was just taking over,” Savage recalls. Still, she was able to secure a Robert Rauschenberg print, which now sits in her bedroom above her own wicker chair that she previously planned on replacing with Didion’s. “Things owned by other people are something that I’ve always treasured and sought out,” Savage says. “This is just a specific iteration that I’m really lucky to be able to enjoy and share with other people.”
