By Mike

This past week at auction was unusual in terms of where the dollars flowed. The runaway winner by value was the sale with the fewest lots*. It was the Jim Irsay Collection sold at Christie's on March 10. Irsay was a billionaire, roughly five times over, when he died last year. His most notable possession (outside of his collection, of course) was the Indianapolis Colts football team. His father purchased the franchise in 1972 when it was still the Baltimore Colts.

Irsay's collection, at least the part sold at Christie's last week, was not sports oriented. It was more popular culture of his era, with rock music, a couple of Steve Jobs items, and this one. The top price went for the original typescript scroll of Jack Kerouac's On The Road. For whatever reason, Kerouac wrote on scrolls. This one was almost 120 feet long. He taped the sections together. It sold in 2002 for $2,426,000. That turned out to be a good investment as this year it went for $12,135,000. That's over $100,000 per foot, or $8,400 per inch. With spring rapidly approaching, who wouldn't want to join Jack on a Great American Road Trip?

Two other items surpassed the million dollar mark last week, also at Christie's. If you don't know them, you are either very old, very young, or don't like rock music. Bob Dylan's handwritten lyrics to The Times They Are A-Changin brought in $2,515,000. Paul McCartney's handwritten lyrics to Hey Jude sold for $1,016,000. He didn't write out all the “nah, nah, nah, nahs.” Other six-figure musicians were Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison, and the Beatles. When I was young, my mother told me when I grew up I'd forget about rock and like “good music.”

Irsay's short collection took in $17,964,700. Runner-up was the Vega Expedition at Stockholms Auctionsverk. It took in the dollar equivalent of $2,360,480 in Swedish krona. The Vega Expedition ran from 1878-1880. It was the first to traverse the Northeast Passage. It was also the first voyage to circumnavigate Eurasia. The leading items from this collection were Louis Palander's Diary (equivalent US $488,000), the deck logbook ($460,000), and a large collection of documents pertaining to the planning of the expedition ($385,000).

For Beatles' fans, this one is a particularly painful document (also at Christie's). It is Paul McCartney's affidavit for the court to begin the break-up of the group in 1970. This copy has Lennon's handwritten annotations. His annotations contradict a number of the claims McCartney made. They made great music together, but the music died when personal conflicts made it impossible to continue. The affidavit sold for $165,100.

For the past week (Saturday March 7 – Friday March 13), 96 auctions containing lots in the rare books and paper collectibles field were held. They took in over $33 million. Over half of that came from the Irsay sale.

For the week ahead (starting tomorrow), we have 82 auctions listed, though one or two additional ones could pop up. You can find a calendar of auctions for March at the following link: www.rarebookhub.com/auctions/calendar?year=2026&month=3.

*The auction had many more than just ten items but we are covering only those in the rare books and paper collectibles field (the guitars were nice too).