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00:05I'm Mike Wolfe, and I've spent my life traveling the world, chasing forgotten objects and the
00:11histories behind them. People everywhere are turning up artifacts every day, often by chance.
00:19And if you're lucky, some of these finds can be worth serious money.
00:27Tonight, on History's Greatest Picks.
00:32Nothing sells like celebrity, and you don't need to be famous to cash in. Like the guy just walking down
00:38a Minnesota street.
00:40There's a poster, he picks it up.
00:42It hasn't been touched for decades. It's really valuable.
00:46Or a guy who patches a neighbor's roof and gets an unusual payment.
00:51Where have these been for over a century?
00:54And sometimes, the biggest treasure is hiding in your mama's closet.
00:59And inside the lining, there's a name written.
01:02Amelia Earhart.
01:03Ordinary people with extraordinary finds, each one touched by fame.
01:08So sit back and let me tell you the stories behind some of history's greatest picks.
01:23Collectors will spend big and go to some wild lengths to own just a piece of their sports heroes.
01:30Like the guy who drops three grand on Barry Sanders' signature on a urinal.
01:36Or the guy who pays $18,000 for Ty Cobb's dentures.
01:42But when it comes to sporting legends, nobody is bigger than this guy.
01:48The greatest of all time.
01:56It's the late 80s, and there's this bank of storage lockers in the middle of California.
02:01And one of them is delinquent.
02:03Nobody's paid the rent on it in about seven months.
02:06And so the items in there are going up for auction.
02:09It's the thrill of the hunt. It's the surprise.
02:11You never know what's going to be in there.
02:14Now, 99 times out of 100, there's nothing of value.
02:19But every once in a while, something truly spectacular shows up.
02:25This locker once belonged to a guy called Bundini Brown.
02:29And for 17 years, he's kept an iconic red robe, which once took center ring.
02:45New York City and the world is buzzing.
02:49The fight of the century is about to happen.
02:52It's a fight among two of the greatest boxers at the time.
02:57Muhammad Ali, simply known as the greatest, is up against Joe Frazier, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
03:04Muhammad Ali is also a champion.
03:07He's undefeated.
03:08Because he has refused to join the Vietnam War, the boxing authorities have stripped him of his titles.
03:16There's so much hype leading up to this fight.
03:20Pre-match press conferences were extremely entertaining, as they always were with Muhammad Ali.
03:26My predictive fight wouldn't go the distance.
03:27Oh, it won't go the distance.
03:28I'll stop it. Stop me.
03:29You.
03:30A lot of jawing back and forth.
03:32One to ten. You'll be out there.
03:34I wouldn't appreciate it.
03:35A lot of playing up the controversy by the press.
03:38I will annihilate this man, and again, I will be right and the world will be wrong.
03:43The man has problems.
03:4622,000 folks pack into Madison Square Garden's sell-out crowd.
03:51Frank Sinatra is there.
03:52Jack Nicholson is there.
03:53Another 300 million people are watching it globally on a live television simulcast.
04:01It's as big as the moon landing that just happened.
04:06Ali takes his walk to the ring, and he steps out not in his usual black and white robe that
04:12he's very much known for.
04:13Instead, he's in this red robe with a white collar, white cuffs, and a white sash, and his name emblazoned
04:20on the back.
04:21He doesn't want to look like he's going to just another fight.
04:23He wants to look like a king.
04:26Ali's corner man is Bondini Brown, and he's more than just his physical trainer.
04:31He's his hype man.
04:33He's his right-hand man in every way.
04:34His speech writer.
04:36He's actually responsible for some of the most famous lines we've ever heard from Ali, like...
04:40Bondini, tell him, what are we going to do?
04:42You're going to float like a butterfly and sing like a bee.
04:46This is a fight like none other.
04:50Ali and Frazier go toe-to-toe the entire match.
04:56Ali dominates the first five rounds, but Joe Frazier comes back, and he's actually leading on the scorecard, entering the
05:0215th and final round.
05:04Frazier is not getting tired.
05:06He's taunting Ali as he hits him with jabs and uppercuts, and Ali tries to yap back, but eventually, he's
05:13woozy.
05:15The unthinkable happens.
05:17Ali goes down.
05:19He loses the fight.
05:23Joe Frazier is the heavyweight champion of the world.
05:28Ali says, if I just stuck with my old standard black and white, I would have taken Frazier down.
05:34In disgust, he throws his fancy red robe at Bondini Brown and blames the robe because he tried something new,
05:43and then something new happened.
05:44He lost.
05:4617 years later, Bondini Brown's locker hits the auction block, sitting inside that same red robe, going for just $2
05:57,000.
05:58Not a bad price for the collector lucky enough to snag it.
06:02By the time of Ali's death in 2016, the public perception of him has completely changed.
06:08He is no longer seen as a draft dodger or an unpatriotic person.
06:13He is seen as someone who really did fight for the ideals of America.
06:17So anything that he touched through his long and storied career is going to be of immense value, both culturally
06:26and monetarily.
06:27And when the robe, which was originally priced at $2,000, comes up for auction again in 2022, it's bought
06:37for an astonishing $348,000.
06:42And it's pretty ironic that it sold for that much considering it was the thing that Ali blamed for his
06:48first ever professional defeat.
06:54The golden age of aviation.
06:57I'm talking about a time when every takeoff could be your last.
07:02And pilots were redefining what humanity could achieve above the clouds.
07:07I'm talking about a time when legends were being made.
07:11So what would you give for a pair of goggles worn by Charles Lindbergh?
07:16Or a piece of the original propeller from the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk?
07:23But sometimes you can only appreciate an artifact's true value if you know the real story behind it.
07:30Like an aviator's leather skullcap.
07:34So for 75 years, Anthony Twiggs' mother, Ellie, has told this fantastic story.
07:41It's one of those family tall tales.
07:42No one's sure if it's true or not, but it's a damn good one.
07:50On August 26th, it's the day of the Women's Air Derby, which is this grueling 2,800-mile race from
07:58Santa Monica to Cleveland.
08:00In these early days, this race takes eight days.
08:04Not hours, days.
08:06And the favorite to win the race is the celebrity pilot, Amelia Earhart.
08:11Amelia Earhart of the Airlines, who will give flight to anything with wings.
08:16And she was so famous that when she landed in Cleveland at the end of that derby, she was mobbed
08:23by a crowd of 18,000 people.
08:26Among these fans is a teenaged Ellie, who loves Amelia Earhart and just wanted a glimpse of her hero.
08:37Later that day, there's a boy who has a crush on Ellie and gives her a gift that he says
08:43he found on the runway where Amelia Earhart landed.
08:47It's an aviator skullcap, kind of like a leather helmet.
08:51And when Ellie looks at it, aw, even though she doesn't like the boy, she loves the helmet.
08:58Because this helmet, she believes, belonged to her hero, Amelia Earhart.
09:08She keeps it for the rest of her life, and she likes to occasionally tell the story behind it.
09:16Decades later, after Ellie passes in 2005, Anthony Twigg is sorting through her possessions.
09:24Now, this is a lifetime worth of stuff.
09:27So there's clothes and jewelry and all kinds of things.
09:31But he also finds a long-forgotten shoebox.
09:36And in that shoebox, he finds a lambskin leather helmet or a cap wrapped in tissue paper preserved in a
09:43plastic bag.
09:44And inside the lining, there's a name written.
09:48A. Earhart or Amelia Earhart.
09:54So Anthony starts to think that maybe his mom was telling the truth all of those years.
09:59He does the logical thing, and he takes it to get appraised to see what the value is.
10:03And the appraiser, they're like, great story, nice old helmet you got here.
10:08But do you have any proof?
10:10Anybody could write A. Earhart in a helmet.
10:12He goes on a mission to see if he can find some actual evidence that this was Amelia's helmet.
10:20He combs through footage and photos of Amelia Earhart trying to compare the helmet she's wearing in those photos to
10:27the one in his possession.
10:28And finally, he comes across newsreel from 1928.
10:33A year before the Women's Air Derby, she became the first woman to be a passenger on a transatlantic flight.
10:41This is international news.
10:43There's newsreels and there's dozens of photographs.
10:47Amelia Earhart is wearing a helmet that Anthony recognizes.
10:51Now, Anthony's just an amateur, so he gets in touch with a professional photo matching agency.
10:57The shape looks right, the trim looks the same, and the seams line up.
11:05Even the wear on the ear flap and the way the stitching is aligned, it all falls into place.
11:13And they confirm that this is, in fact, the helmet that Amelia Earhart dropped on the runway when she landed
11:19in Cleveland in 1929.
11:26After being picked off the ground for free, it's tucked away for 92 years.
11:32Then in February of 2022, it hits the auction block.
11:40Early estimates say $80,000, but the story and the name draw massive attention worldwide.
11:47Bidding hits $100,000 right away.
11:50Then it jumps to $250,000.
11:54Then $500,000.
11:56The final selling price, $825,000 to an anonymous bidder from California.
12:06Meaning it's not only a good story, but a profitable one as well.
12:16When it's the right band and the right show, an original concert poster can be worth a fortune.
12:23Like the poster for the Grateful Dead's summer of 1966 Skeleton and Roses concert,
12:29which sold for a little over $137,000 in 2022.
12:34Or the Beatles poster from their Shea Stadium show, which sold for $275,000.
12:42But those numbers don't even come close to the poster for a concert that never took place.
12:52So it's 1959, huge snowstorm, super cold, freezing day.
12:57Maintenance worker goes outside just to check things.
12:59And he sees underneath the telephone pole that there's a poster lying face down.
13:05Picks it up, brushes it off.
13:07It's 14 by 22 inch, pretty standard.
13:09It's got a glob of glue on the back where it had been posted up.
13:13Turns it over.
13:14It's what they call a tour blank poster.
13:16Traveling acts would have them.
13:18They would be pre-printed with everything but the location and the date.
13:21It says, winter dance tour.
13:23But in red grease pencil, the rest is filled in.
13:26Moorhead Armory, February 3rd, two shows, 7.30 and 9.30.
13:31And then below that is the lineup.
13:35It's got Richie Valens.
13:37It's got the Big Bopper.
13:38It's got Dion and the Belmonts.
13:40And the headliner for this show is this up-and-comer, Buddy Holly.
13:47Buddy Holly is on the cusp of superstardom.
13:50Songs like Peggy Sue, That'll Be the Day.
13:53The dude was rocking out.
13:55He was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music.
13:57The guy who finds it takes the poster home and it just sits there gathering dust for decades.
14:05So why hang on to it?
14:07What makes this concert poster so different from the rest?
14:12The winter dance party kicks off two weeks earlier and it's an ambitious tour.
14:1924 cities, two gigs a night.
14:21But here's the thing, it's the dead of winter in the Midwest.
14:25And they're zigzagging through the snow, just freezing their butts off.
14:30It is hell.
14:33It's not like they're traveling in comfort.
14:35They're traveling via bus in 1959.
14:37In the first 11 days of this tour, five buses break down.
14:44And they have to get them replaced.
14:46A couple of weeks in, Buddy Holly has had enough.
14:49So Buddy Holly says, I'm going to book this small plane, this four-seater, to get from Iowa to Minnesota.
14:54He's had enough with buses.
14:56He didn't have time to be traveling another 365 miles, freezing his ass off.
15:02Buddy Holly, the big bopper, Richie Valance, hop on board.
15:07Famously, one member of the band decides the plane is not for him.
15:14In the early hours of February 3rd, 1959, the plane takes off, but then immediately crashes into a frozen cornfield.
15:24Everyone dies.
15:26This is a tragedy that has been immortalized in many different ways, but perhaps none more famously than in Don
15:32McLean's song, American Pie.
15:35And this poster, found on the snowy sidewalk, is the only surviving copy of the concert poster for the day
15:46the music died.
15:51When the gentleman who found the poster passes on, his son starts clearing out the family home piece by piece.
16:00And that's when he uncovers the poster, and that's when he uncovers the poster his dad kept for all of
16:05those years.
16:07It's pristine.
16:08It hasn't been touched for decades.
16:10It is in the best condition you can ever find a concert poster.
16:15It's going to be unbelievably valuable.
16:18In 2004, he sells it to a collector for $175,000.
16:25But the story doesn't end there.
16:31Whereas in the 1950s, posters were seen as advertising, disposable after they'd served their purpose, by the 21st century, posters
16:42are regarded as valuable collectibles, if not art.
16:45It's the ones coming out of, like, the Haight-Ashbury in the 60s, they're beautiful, the art is designed.
16:51This poster is from a much simpler time, a much more innocent time in rock music, really the birth of
16:56rock music.
16:57This poster represents all of that talent, all of that wonder, and all of that promise.
17:03Here before us in this poster, we actually have one step on that road not taken, a poster for a
17:10concert that actually never happened.
17:12There's a lot going on in this one poster, so it's not hard to see why it would have been
17:16of such great interest to so many collectors.
17:19This is a holy grail for any poster collector.
17:23In 2022, the collector brings the poster back to market.
17:28The numbers rise at a staggering pace.
17:31It's $150,000 asking for $160,000, and we have it in $170,000, now go $180,000.
17:37$180,000.
17:37So $300,000.
17:40$360,000.
17:42The total amount paid is $447,000, which means a poster that was found on the street in snowy Minnesota
17:52is now the most expensive concert poster ever sold at auction.
18:01If you had a spare million laying around in 2023, you could have bought Teddy Roosevelt's bedside Smith & Wesson.
18:09For twice that amount in 2002, you could have bought George Washington's saddle pistols.
18:14And if you had been in the right place at the right time, you could have picked up an even
18:19more valuable pair of six-shooters for nothing.
18:28In 1934, times were hard for everyone.
18:33One guy ends up needing some roofing work done.
18:37So he offers something in trade, which was extremely common during the Great Depression.
18:42What he receives is a wooden presentation box, and when he opens it up, inside he sees two beautiful revolvers.
18:53Now, the roofer's an interesting character, because he's accepted this thing as payment, but he hasn't taken the next step
18:58to find out what it's worth.
19:00Had this repairman looked closer, the two handles, he would have seen engraved in each the portrait of one of
19:07the most famous Americans of all time.
19:10None other than Ulysses S. Grant.
19:15So let's turn back the clock to 1863, the height of the Civil War.
19:23Ulysses S. Grant is engaged in expeditionary warfare deep into Confederate territory, at Vicksburg on the Mississippi River.
19:31The Union Army knew they needed to take over Vicksburg, but it wasn't going to be easy.
19:35It was a 40-day siege.
19:40Until, finally, they were able to take it away from the Confederates.
19:44That was a game-changer.
19:47A short while after Grant takes Vicksburg, he's given a gift, and it's a gift of two guns.
19:55And they're not just any old, ordinary, run-of-the-mill revolvers.
19:59These guns are also engraved with ornamentation that is extremely handsome, with this beautiful, polished blue finish.
20:09These revolvers are exceptional.
20:13Louis Nimshka was the master engraver of cults of that time period, and these are done by him, which makes
20:19them incredibly beautiful.
20:21On the back strap of both revolvers is an inscription from your friends, Cutler and Wagley.
20:28Cutler and Wagley are cotton traders of dubious reputations, not that unusual for the cotton trade.
20:35So, when Grant moves his army in and captures Vicksburg, cotton can now begin flowing north on the Mississippi River
20:42to safe territory.
20:43And his friends, who were the big beneficiaries of this deal, they wanted to acknowledge his generosity by giving him
20:51this handsome pair of cased Remington revolvers.
20:5820 years after the Civil War, Grant's living in New York, unaware that his luck is about to take a
21:06serious nosedive.
21:08The thing about Ulysses S. Grant is, on the one hand, he's one of the most successful people who's ever
21:12lived.
21:12The moment makes the man, and that moment was the American Civil War, and he stood up in a way
21:17that I don't think anybody else could have.
21:19And he was president of the United States twice.
21:21And then, on the other hand, when it came to money, he just could not win.
21:27A terrible businessman, something that he was throughout his life.
21:30Grant has a business partner. His name is Ferdinand Ward.
21:34And Ward is known as the Napoleon of Wall Street.
21:38This guy is brilliant with money.
21:40So, Grant gives all of his money to Ward, and lets Ward do all the heavy lifting.
21:45The problem is, Ward's a fraud, and Grant loses everything overnight.
21:52He has no estate to leave for his kids, and he realizes in the closing months of his life, I've
21:56got to help the kids.
21:58I've got to create a legacy.
22:00And he decides to write the memoir, while also desperately scrounging for anything in the house that he can exchange
22:06for a little bit of money to help him get through it all.
22:08But there is one item that he's not letting go of, and that is that box with two beautiful guns
22:16inside.
22:18Could it be that he doesn't want people to know that he's received these from individuals who might have benefited
22:24from the opening up of the cotton trade?
22:27The fact that he held on to these and kept them in the family only fuels that type of speculation.
22:34Anybody who's looking for any last little shred of dirt that they can use to drag his name through the
22:39mud, these revolvers would do that.
22:41So he holds on to them.
22:43Because what does every president do when they get out of office?
22:45They start worrying about their legacy, the way they're going to be remembered after they die.
22:50After Grant passes in 1885, the revolvers stay in the family, passed down to his son Jesse.
22:58The family holds on to them until the Great Depression, and they decide to trade them for roof repairs.
23:06The repairman keeps them for 40 years, eventually selling them in 1976 for $1,500.
23:15The amazing thing is, these guns are hidden from view for more than a century and a half, until all
23:22of a sudden,
23:24in 2018, they appear in Las Vegas at the Antique Guns Show.
23:30When I walked in that day, somebody stopped me and was like, have you seen the Grant revolvers yet?
23:34And I was like, what Grant revolvers? I had no idea.
23:36These cased Remingtons constitute the most elaborate and historically significant set of currently known revolvers manufactured during the Civil War.
23:46Where have these been for over a century?
23:50It's an incredible story.
23:51A story that I think tells you very interesting things about a man that we thought we knew everything about.
23:58And what we learned, I think, makes us love and appreciate him more.
24:02Because what do those revolvers do?
24:04They make him more human.
24:07Let's get started.
24:08Lot number 106.
24:09Never been sold publicly before.
24:11They probably will never be sold publicly again.
24:13They are that important.
24:14When they finally hit the auction block May of 2022, the atmosphere in this sales room is electric.
24:21Fresh, fresh, fresh as the day is long.
24:24$800,000 bid, $850,000.
24:27Bidding skyrockets past $2 million, then $3 million, then $4 million.
24:33What do you go? $4.3.
24:34Yes.
24:34$4.3.
24:35Once the hammer falls and the smoke clears.
24:38Sold at $4.4 million.
24:40Add in the buyer's premium, and the final price is $5,170,000.
24:50Making them second only in value to the gun that shot Billy the Kid dead.
25:02It's not just the athletes who make a fortune from sports.
25:05Sometimes it's the everyman, the guy in the bleachers.
25:09Like the goal-winning puck from the 1980 Miracle on Ice, which flew into the crowd and was sold at
25:14auction for $37,000.
25:16Or the baseball fan who caught Shohei Ohtani's 50-50 home run ball in 2024 and sold it for $4
25:24.3 million.
25:25But for every big win like those, there's a cautionary tale.
25:29A reminder that fortunes found in the bleachers can vanish just as easily as they're made.
25:41It's a 2022 divisional round of the NFL playoffs.
25:44The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led by Tom Brady, are playing the Los Angeles Rams.
25:51The Bucs are down by two touchdowns.
25:53They need another miracle from Brady.
25:553.20 left in the fourth.
25:57He launches a ball 55 yards in the air to receiver Mike Evans, who catches it for a touchdown.
26:05And then tosses the ball into the stands.
26:11There's a guy in the stands who isn't even supposed to be there.
26:15His wife convinced him to splurge on these fieldside tickets.
26:20In his hands, he's got Tom Brady's touchdown pass football.
26:26Everyone around him, they want it.
26:29He's holding it.
26:30You cannot have it.
26:31This is an iconic moment for him.
26:33This ball is obviously valuable.
26:34Not only is Tom Brady the winningest Super Bowl quarterback of all time,
26:38but this was his 86th playoff touchdown.
26:42That's 40 more than any other quarterback.
26:45And he's got kind of this larger-than-life celebrity status in the U.S.
26:49He was married to a supermodel, Gisele Bündchen,
26:52and led his team, primarily the New England Patriots,
26:55to multiple come-from-behind victories in the Super Bowl.
26:59But despite his best efforts, the Rams do end up winning the game 30-27,
27:03and Brady and the Bucs' season is done.
27:06But the story of the ball in question is only getting started.
27:11A week later, the ball gets even more valuable when Tom Brady posts on social media
27:16that he's going to focus on other things, which presumably means he's planning to retire.
27:26So what that means is this football is the last touchdown football the Tom Brady has ever thrown.
27:34It's going to be unbelievably valuable.
27:38Now, the year prior, Tom Brady's first-ever touchdown ball had sold for $428,842.
27:46If that's his first fall, what's the last going to sell for?
27:52So the guy knows he's got something special, so he doesn't waste any time.
27:56He's got to get this authenticated.
27:58It has the gold NFL logo emblazoned on the side.
28:02It has a silver oval with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers logo in it.
28:06It's got the number 435 on it, which was seen in photos.
28:10And it's got some white specks on it that were seen when Mike Evans caught that touchdown.
28:15This is the ball.
28:16It's been matched.
28:18It's been authenticated.
28:19Three weeks after he catches the ball, the fan puts the ball up for auction.
28:22And bidding opens at $100,000.
28:25It's an online sale.
28:26And over the course of the next four weeks, the bids reach $200,000.
28:32By the evening of the final day, the highest bid is $218,000.
28:39But over the last four hours of the auction, the price more than doubles.
28:45The final hammer price, an astonishing $518,000.
28:52At this point in time, the seller is thinking,
28:55thank you, Mike Evans.
28:58You just paid for my next mortgage.
29:0124 hours after the auction, Tom Brady announces he's not retiring.
29:10Bad news for the guy that bought this football for a half a million dollars.
29:15Is it worth that still?
29:17No.
29:18The anonymous winner of the bidding war refuses to pay.
29:24This is clearly no longer Tom Brady's final touchdown pass ball.
29:29It's returned to the guy who originally caught it.
29:32Who, poor guy, now doesn't actually know whether this ball is valuable or not.
29:40Six months later, he tries his luck once more and puts the ball back up for auction.
29:45This time, it's not advertised as his last touchdown pass,
29:49but his 86th playoff touchdown pass instead.
29:52It sells for over $129,000, which is a massive number considering he got it for free.
29:59But he'll probably always be haunted by that $500,000 that could have been.
30:08Just like Tom Brady's ball, another infamous collectible took the spotlight while millions watched on live television.
30:17But this time, it's not about sports.
30:20It was a moment captured by the news that stunned the country.
30:28It's January 1960.
30:30Two friends walk into Race Sporting Goods in Dallas, Texas to buy a gun.
30:35One of the guys is a small-time hustler, and his buddy just happens to be a police officer.
30:42One of them picks out and purchases a Colt Cobra six-shot revolver and .38 special.
30:48And it's the police officer that buys the gun because cops don't pay tax on guns in Texas.
30:53He pays $62.50 for it.
30:56When they go outside to the parking lot, the police officer turns the pistol over to the small-time hustler.
31:02And that small-time hustler is the owner of the Carousel Club.
31:06Carousel Club is a strip joint in downtown Dallas.
31:10And his friend, the police officer, says,
31:12Listen, you've got some dangerous clientele.
31:15You're dealing with large amounts of money.
31:17You should be protecting yourself.
31:18You need a gun.
31:19Back then, there were very few options for somebody that wanted something very concealable that they could carry in a
31:27pocket.
31:27Because everything else is basically a duty gun that you're wearing in a holster in front of God and everybody.
31:34If you want something that packs some punch that's going to go in your pocket,
31:37the Colt Cobra is the perfect answer for an underworld businessman who's carrying a lot of cash
31:44and needs something to hide in his pocket to protect himself.
31:48What you've got to know about this small-time hustler, his name is Jack Ruby.
31:56Just three years later, his Colt Cobra will take center stage
32:00in one of the most shocking moments ever seen on live television.
32:06At 125, the motorcade moves into the downtown area.
32:14John F. Kennedy has just been assassinated.
32:17America is in turmoil.
32:18And there can't be a bigger story than the assassination of the president of the United States of America.
32:23And the news is unfolding in real time.
32:27And they see the chain of events happen.
32:30They see Kennedy assassinated, Lyndon Johnson sworn in.
32:35And they see the massive manhunt for the eventual culprit who was caught, Lee Harvey Oswald.
32:41And now there's a live feed of the accused assassin being moved from police headquarters to the county jail.
32:47And millions of Americans are watching this.
32:49They want to get a look at the man that shot and killed President Kennedy.
32:52He's swarmed by all the news media, reporters, still photographers, live television cameras.
32:59I really don't know what the situation is about. Nobody has told me anything.
33:03He's also swarmed by the man who ended up with that Colt revolver.
33:09Jack Ruby steps out of the crowd and puts a round right into Lee Harvey Oswald's gut, ending his life.
33:17Right after the shooting, officers wrestled the gun from Ruby's hand, marking it as evidence.
33:24For years, it sits locked away in Dallas police custody until 1967 when Ruby dies of cancer.
33:34And that's when the fight for this gun takes another turn.
33:38Now there are two parties who are claiming that the gun belongs to them.
33:42The first is Jack Ruby's lawyer.
33:45He's owed about $65,000 in unpaid fees and figures that the gun is fair compensation.
33:52Ruby's brother Earl claims that it belongs to the family.
33:58This begins a legal battle over the custody of this revolver.
34:02Who owns it? It takes 24 years.
34:06Eventually, the gun is adjudicated to Earl.
34:09But by this time, he's racked up $70,000 in legal fees and he owes the IRS $86,000.
34:17He's got the gun he's been fighting for, but he's just going to have to sell it immediately.
34:21The timing of this sale couldn't be more perfect because when Earl finally decides to unload this thing,
34:28it's the year 1991, which is also the year that Oliver Stone's feature film JFK is released in theaters.
34:35And nothing is hotter on the collector's market than JFK-related memorabilia.
34:43It's in the zeitgeist.
34:46For a gun that cost $62.50, when Ruby's Colt Cobra goes up for auction in 1991, it brings $220
34:57,000.
34:58The buyer, Florida real estate developer Anthony Pugliese III.
35:04Over the next three decades, he fires hundreds of rounds from that gun.
35:09Every one of them with the same ballistic fingerprint as the bullet that Ruby used to kill Oswald.
35:16And those bullets, well, they end up at auction too.
35:20Selling for charity, some going for $18,000 each.
35:32If celebrity sells, then royalty sells big time.
35:36Like Mary Antoinette's diamond bracelet that sold for a staggering $8.2 million in 2021.
35:43Or her pearl pendant that sold for an even more staggering $36.2 million in 2018.
35:51Even a crown made of 100% plastic can be worth a small fortune if it once sat on the
35:58right person's head.
36:06This story takes place in 1997.
36:09There's a guy named Baron Claiborne.
36:11He's a photographer.
36:13He goes to this costume novelty shop that had been in New York City and Manhattan for nearly a century
36:19called Gordon's.
36:21It's like something off of a Hollywood set.
36:23Any type of novelty, any type of costume, mask, accessory.
36:29It was old.
36:31It was cheap, but it was also incredible.
36:34You need some kind of novelty item?
36:36You're going to this store for Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day.
36:40If you wanted to dress a clown, you could dress a clown.
36:42But if you wanted to dress the ascendant king of hip-hop, you could do that, too.
36:48So Baron starts rummaging through stuff for this photo shoot he has.
36:53He's rummaging through magic tricks and goofy costumes and costume jewelry and stupid hats.
36:58He stumbles on this cheap plastic crown.
37:02He's like, you know what?
37:04Maybe this crown could work for this photo shoot.
37:06So he buys two crowns.
37:08One's a smaller size and one's a bigger size.
37:10He pays 12 bucks, and he's out the door.
37:14And he's got this great cover assignment for a magazine called Rap Pages, which is a big hip-hop magazine.
37:21The man they're featuring, Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, a notorious B.I.G.,
37:28like one of the most legendary rappers of all time, just blowing up on the East Coast.
37:33I grew up on the East Coast.
37:34I remember hearing Biggie Smalls for the first time.
37:38He would just drive around in our cars, the mid-90s, listening to Biggie 24-7.
37:44So Claiborne, he's got this idea now with these crowns.
37:48He's going to crown Biggie Smalls the king of hip-hop.
37:52He's huge.
37:53He's big.
37:53Six foot three, 280 pounds.
37:56And Baron's like, wow, I got this crown for you.
37:59And he puts the little crown on his head, and it sits like, it's too small for his noggin.
38:03Even the big crown is too small for his head.
38:07So he takes the bigger one, cuts out the foam that lines the interior of it.
38:12Doesn't really fit.
38:13He's able to fit it onto Biggie's head at least well enough for the photo.
38:17Maybe not that where Biggie would want to be prancing around or walking to the city in this crown,
38:21but at least for the photo shoot, it's going to work.
38:23And he starts shooting him with this crown.
38:26Just a few snapshots later, and a cheap plastic crown becomes a hip-hop icon.
38:33Worn by one of rap's greatest, immortalized in one of the most famous pop culture portraits ever taken.
38:41At the time, the East Coast-West Coast rift was a real thing.
38:46Biggie, East Coast.
38:48Then you got his rival, Tupac Shakur, West Coast.
38:52Back and forth through the lyrics, who's the best.
38:55They're at war with each other.
38:58Tupac Shakur, unfortunately, gets shot down in Las Vegas.
39:04And they assume that Biggie Smalls is involved.
39:09And then three days after the King of New York photo shoot,
39:14Biggie himself is gunned down in a drive-by.
39:18He had only produced two albums at this time.
39:21He wasn't even 30 years old.
39:24But before he left, he left that iconic image.
39:31The photo, because of his death, becomes iconic.
39:34You saw that photo everywhere.
39:35You saw that photo in magazines, on murals, on the sides of buildings.
39:40It's not just the crown.
39:42It's the choice of the deep red backdrop, the pose, the expression on his face.
39:47Put it all together, and this photo makes him regal.
39:50He's the King of New York.
39:51He's the King of Hip-Hop.
39:53You know, photography is a funny thing, and I don't think there's any way Baron Claiborne knew quite what he
39:58was creating.
39:59Maybe he had an inkling, though, because he decided to hold on to that crown.
40:02So what he does, right after, is he asks Biggie to sign it.
40:08So not only does he sign it, next to his signature, he writes K-O-N-Y, King of New
40:15York.
40:16For years, he kept it, and a piece of the pointy top of the crown ends up cracking off.
40:21But it's still around, and, you know, you can see, that's the one that Biggie wore.
40:26It's plastic.
40:26It's made to be thrown away.
40:28It's like a one-use piece.
40:29But what makes it iconic is the head that it stood upon and that photo that it produced for the
40:37cover of that magazine.
40:41When Claiborne decides to sell the crown, its value is estimated between $200,000 and $300,000.
40:48But when the hammer finally drops, what started as a plastic $6 keepsake sells for nearly $600,000.
41:04All of which goes to show it might be a ball thrown into the stands, or a poster falling on
41:11the ground, or a piece of cheap plastic that's got the right name and story attached to it, then you
41:21might be sitting on a fortune.
41:28I'll see you next time.
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