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00:10I'm Mike Wolf and I've spent my life traveling the world chasing forgotten objects and the
00:16histories behind them. People everywhere are turning up artifacts every day, often by chance.
00:24And if you're lucky, some of these finds can be worth serious money.
00:32Tonight, on history's greatest picks. The macabre, the gruesome, and the weird. I'm talking
00:42body parts. With no one watching, he takes out his scalpel for one last cut. And he cuts
00:49off Napoleon's penis. Witches. It's a family heirloom that becomes a dark and magical artifact,
00:58because this is the year of the first Salem Witch Trials.
01:03And vampires.
01:04This is classic Bram Stoker, straight from the pages of his novel Dracula.
01:10I'm talking dark discoveries with frightening price tags. So sit back and let me tell you
01:16the stories behind some of history's greatest picks.
01:27There are a lot of reasons why people get into collecting car license plates. Some are looking
01:32for celebrity, like the Bat One Gotham City plate from the 1960s TV show, or Frank Sinatra's unmistakable
01:41Mr. S. But some are looking for the macabre.
01:49Jane Walker, like everyone else on planet Earth, has a junk drawer in her kitchen. In that junk drawer,
01:55though, she has two regular old automobile license plates. She inherited these items from her father,
02:02Willard Hess. Back in the early 60s, her father had run a custom car business. And he just happened
02:10to be in the right place at the right time, to make the pick of a lifetime.
02:21In 1961, a brand new Lincoln Continental four-door comes off the assembly line.
02:27It's a low-slung, sharp design, rear-hinged suicide doors. It's a completely new look for a Lincoln.
02:36The vehicle is a convertible. When you put the top down, all the world can see you.
02:42So it's the perfect vehicle to be converted into a presidential limousine.
02:46It didn't look as overbuilt or as blocky or as clunky as the four-door sedans from just a few
02:52years earlier. The kind of cars that were used to drive Eisenhower and Truman around.
02:57It's contemporary. It's representative of the idea of a new America that JFK has brought to the country.
03:04So the Secret Service decided to lease one of these brand new 1961 Lincoln Continentals
03:11for $500 a year.
03:13They send it up to Cincinnati to Hess's custom car shop to have it retrofitted.
03:18They spend $200,000 to give it the perfect looking design.
03:24They chop it in half, lengthen it. They then add to it this hydraulically lifting seat
03:30so that the president can crank it up so that everybody can see him if the top's down.
03:34They paint it midnight blue so it stands out on TV. When they're done, they issue two regular
03:42license plates registered in the District of Columbia, GG300.
03:50But it does not include armor plating. That's because this limousine is to make President
03:56Kennedy visible to the world. It's not there to protect him.
03:59This is the car that we've all seen in the photos and in the footage. And on that car is
04:04the license plate, GG300.
04:09JFK was sitting high in the back there in Dealey Plaza. That day in November 1963, he was assassinated.
04:21After President Kennedy and Governor Connolly are shot in the vehicle, it continues down Elm Street,
04:26turns right on Stimmons Expressway, goes all the way to Parkland Hospital.
04:29The president is now dead. President Johnson has now taken over the office. And it has decided
04:35to further convert the vehicle. And so it's sent back to Cincinnati.
04:40They implemented what they called Operation Quick Fix. They install a $500,000 overhaul.
04:49They apply literally a ton of armor plating. They fit it with bulletproof glass that can withstand
04:55a bullet from a .30 caliber rifle. The purpose now is no longer to showcase the president. It's to
05:02protect him. As the vehicle is undergoing restoration in Hess's shop, an agent shows up
05:08with two new license plates on them. The old plates are about to expire.
05:14They pull the old ones off. An FBI agent throws them in the trash. Hess sees this and asks the
05:20agent,
05:20oh, come on, man. Can I have these? The agent acquiesces? Sure, you can take them. And that's
05:26how they come into Hess's custody. They become his daughter's property. After he passes, they make
05:32their way to the junk drawer. Then in 2015, she decides to let them go at auction.
05:39Their value is decided by one unmistakable detail. They're clearly visible in photographs taken at the
05:46exact moment JFK is shot. Their provenance is beyond question. In 2015, the plates draw serious
05:54attention and bring in $100,000. As for the limo itself, in spite of all its history, it will go
06:02on
06:02to be used by four more American presidents until it's finally retired in 1977.
06:11They say that everything has a price. Churchill's dentures sold for $25,000. Queen Victoria's knickers,
06:2016 grand. I can assure you that there is nothing on the market more bizarre than what's in this next
06:26story. It's New York City. There's this exhibition at the Museum of the French Arts. Everybody's only there
06:37to see one thing. It's in a velvet lined box and it's the pièce de résistance. It's gruesome and it's
06:45macabre, but crowds line up to see it. And everyone is talking about it. There are no photographs of what
06:52they saw. All we have are the press reports. Some reports say it looks like a shriveled eel. Some say
07:00it
07:00looks like leather and some reports say it looks a bit like beef jerky. A hundred years prior to being
07:08put on show in New York, it began its bizarre journey. Now, St. Helena is basically the middle of
07:16nowhere. It's in the South Atlantic. It's 1,200 miles from South America. It's 1,800 miles away from
07:22Africa. And that's what makes it the perfect place to send Napoleon after he's defeated at Waterloo in
07:301850. And even after he loses at Waterloo and he gets banished to his island exile of St. Helena,
07:37somehow he's still bossing people around, treating them like crap. He's no longer emperor. He's a
07:43prisoner and he drives his captors crazy. It's his physician, Dr. Francesco Antomarchi, who he is
07:50driving craziest among them all. It's 1821. Napoleon passes away.
07:59Antomarchi, being the physician, does the autopsy. He opens him up. He finds stomach cancer.
08:04He then does the official duty of taking a death mask of Napoleon.
08:11He finishes, but in secret he does one additional thing. Remember, this doctor hates him. So now he
08:20has a chance for revenge. Then with no one watching, he takes out his scalpel for one last cut. And
08:27he
08:27cuts off Napoleon's penis. Very few people alive today have ever seen it, but we do have a faithful replica.
08:39I mean, I think the lesson of this story is, you know, treat people well, um, on your way up
08:45or on
08:45your way down. Now the penis has a heck of a journey after this happens. It's the chaplain who then
08:51smuggles the item back to Europe where it's then passed down through his family. 80 years goes by
08:59and the family then sells it to an antiquarian book dealer in London. Now this collector in Britain
09:04knows the significance of what he's got. And he says, I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to
09:09take this to the French and present it to them. So by now, Napoleon's body is entombed in this
09:15gorgeous tomb in Paris. People go to visit it. And yet there's one part of Napoleon that remains missing.
09:26But the French government doesn't want anything to do with it. So it remains in London until 1927,
09:31when it then travels to New York and becomes one of the central artifacts of this exhibition in New
09:38York City. 1965 Christie's puts it up for auction. 35,000 is a starting bid. They don't get a single
09:46offer. Nobody wants to touch Napoleon's penis, apparently. In the 1970s, a private deal is done.
09:53And for just 3,000 bucks, it ends up in the collection of Dr. John Latimer, one of the world's
09:59leading urologists. Latimer is a huge military collector. He's especially interested in World
10:05War II artifacts. He's also very interested in the macabre. He's got this amazing thing that you could get
10:11a giant lineup out the door of people that want to see, but he hides it. Just keeping it out
10:16of view
10:17to respect the privacy of Napoleon. He only showed the real thing to about 10 people. The rest of us,
10:25well, we'll have to make do with the replica. He removes it from public gaze. And rumor has it,
10:32he kept it hidden in a box underneath his bed for the next 40 years. After he passes,
10:38it comes into the possession of his niece. Current values put it at a mere $100,000. Strange, yes,
10:45but not a bad deal when you consider Napoleon's hat recently sold for $2.1 million.
10:56Anything associated with one of the deadliest disasters at sea will fetch a price. And a menu
11:02from the first class lounge shines a light on both the Titanic's luxury and one man's dark secret.
11:14Abraham Solomon is this wealthy businessman who dies at the age of 90. His family
11:19describes him as quiet, but I think a better word might be secretive. His niece always said
11:26that Uncle Abraham acted like a man who was hiding something. Tucked among his various belongings is a
11:34piece of paper that looks fairly unremarkable. But if you look closer, you find out it's a menu.
11:42Overall, it wouldn't be interesting if it weren't for the date on the menu. April 14th, 1912.
12:00April 14th, 1912. We're several days into the maiden voyage of the Titanic. And Abraham Solomon is a
12:09wealthy businessman who is a first-class passenger.
12:14113 cooks and bakers and stewards are preparing 6,000 meals every day. That makes Titanic home to
12:24one of the biggest floating kitchens of its time. On the fourth day of the voyage, Solomon goes for
12:32lunch in the dining room as per usual, and he looks at the menu. The lunch is another king's banquet
12:40on
12:40the high seas with a long list of delicacies. You've got mutton chops, roast beef, shrimp, spiced ham,
12:48ox tongue, and a selection of cheeses. We're not sure what he had for lunch,
12:54but he keeps the menu as a keepsake, maybe a souvenir. He picks it up and he slips it into
13:00a pocket.
13:02Twelve hours later, the Titanic hits an iceberg.
13:06And this is where the story of the man with the first-class menu in his pocket takes a dark
13:12turn.
13:13When Titanic begins to sink, the call goes out to the lifeboats, women and children first.
13:19For reasons that are only known to Abraham, he ignores the call, women and children first,
13:25and secures a spot for himself on the infamous lifeboat number one.
13:31It casts off with only 12 people aboard, five wealthy passengers and seven crew members. It has room
13:38for 40. Rumors begin to circulate that one of the wealthy passengers in lifeboat number one bribed the
13:48crew not to return to rescue any of the other passengers. The New York press starts to call
13:53lifeboat number one the money boat. There's an inquiry in Britain into all the events of Titanic,
13:59and certainly lifeboat number one. And the allegations are claimed to be unfounded.
14:03The whole idea of the money boat doesn't hold water.
14:07Although they do criticize the fact that the boat did not turn back
14:11and attempt to recover survivors from the water.
14:16So three hours after the Titanic goes down, the Carpathia arrives and starts to rescue passengers,
14:21including Abraham Solomon. He still has the first class lunch menu in his pocket.
14:28And according to his family, Abraham Solomon never mentioned Titanic again. And until he dies,
14:34the family didn't even know this artifact existed.
14:3985 years after the disaster, James Cameron's blockbuster film Titanic reignites worldwide fascination
14:48with the disaster. In fact, there's so much interest that there's now specialized Titanic auctions.
14:55And the value of anything rescued from the ship skyrockets.
15:00In 2015, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, buys the faded water stay menu from the doomed ship
15:08for $88,000. Just nine years later, it comes back on the market, this time selling for an astonishing $340
15:18,000.
15:24Religious books have always been a hot commodity. A Gutenberg Bible sold in 1987 for $4.9 million.
15:32St. Cuthbert's Gospel went for $14 million in 2012. The Book of Mormon in 2017 went for $35 million.
15:42And in 2016, one buyer pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for a holy book forever linked to the Salem
15:49witch trials.
15:53It's the late 1800s, and this guy in western New York comes across this battered old book.
15:59We don't know if he's been specifically looking for this book or if it's a coincidence or just fate,
16:04but whatever the case is, he takes it home with him. It's a book of psalms.
16:12On the title page is an inscription. The Psalms,
16:17hymns, and spiritual songs of the Old and New Testament. For the use, edification,
16:23and comfort of the saints in public and private, especially in New England.
16:30It's a beat-up old book, but right there on the front page is a signature, Jonathan Corwin.
16:37With or without the signature, this book is historically significant.
16:41It's a copy of the Bay Psalm book. The first edition was printed in 1640,
16:48and it is the very first book printed in English in what would become America.
16:55It doesn't get much bigger than the Bay Psalm book. There are only 11 first edition copies of the
17:03book book in existence. And in 2013, one of them was sold for a staggering 14 million.
17:12The Bay Psalm book is the go-to prayer book for Puritans of Massachusetts.
17:19This 1693 example is a seventh edition, which was owned by Jonathan Corwin.
17:27Corwin is a wealthy merchant. He's a politician, and he's also been involved in the colonial assembly.
17:33He also serves as magistrate, basically trying petty crimes, public drunkenness.
17:40In 1692, the year before he gets the Bay Psalm book and signs it,
17:45Jonathan Corwin's life is about to change. Because this is the year of the first Salem witch trials.
17:52And Jonathan Corwin is going to be one of the judges.
17:56Corwin is assigned to the special court. While we don't know Corwin's role in it,
18:05we do know its result. The special court tries and condemns 19 people to death.
18:16Among those accused of witchcraft is a local landowner called John Proctor.
18:21He's accused by multiple young women of engaging in black magic. He is tried, he is condemned, and he is
18:30hanged.
18:32One of the fascinating things about the story is that 200 years later, late 1800s, this book is found by
18:39a guy in New York.
18:41And that guy happens to be a descendant of John Proctor.
18:47It's a family heirloom that becomes a dark and magical artifact.
18:54Over the next 120 years, through generation after generation, the children of the descendants of John Proctor are drawn to
19:04this book.
19:05And they call it the witch book.
19:09Eventually, the family decides to part with this unnerving relic.
19:13In 2016, it goes to auction and in line with previous sales of similar editions, the estimate is put at
19:20$20,000 to $40,000.
19:21But it's bought for 10 times that amount. $221,000 is the final price, boosted by the name written on
19:29the inside of the cover and his association with one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history.
19:38If you want protection from a deadly enemy, you could pick up a lipstick gun known as the kiss of
19:43death or a poisoned umbrella.
19:46If your enemy isn't deadly, but undead, you'll need something far more specialized.
19:55It's 1969 and Lord Haley passes away.
19:59He's an important man.
20:00He's a member of the House of Lords and he's a member of the Queen's Privy Council.
20:05This guy is up there. He's part of the British establishment and he is very well connected.
20:11His ashes are sent to Punjab in India where he once served as governor in the 1920s and a plaque
20:18is unveiled in his honor at Westminster Abbey.
20:22As the executor of his state is going through his personal belongings after his death, they find a mysterious wooden
20:29box.
20:33And they have no idea what it is or where it came from.
20:36He never talked about it and he's outlived all of his relatives.
20:39So no one knows what this mysterious box is.
20:43It's made of oak and it's locked.
20:48But on the top are two brass crucifixes that when you turn them just so, it unlatches a mechanism and
21:00the box opens.
21:03Inside there are two drawers.
21:05In the top drawer, there's a Bible and some holy water.
21:08The bottom drawer has a rosary, some brass candlesticks and yet another crucifix.
21:18These are really normal religious items you might use for a baptism.
21:22But the strange thing is, what kind of religious ceremony would require two pistols?
21:28What kind of religious ceremony necessitates what appears to be a mallet and a stake?
21:39And there's one more thing in the center of the top drawer labeled Allium Sativum.
21:47And that's the Latin name for garlic.
21:52It turns out that Lord Haley's box has a very specific purpose.
21:57And the items inside are far from random.
22:01Holy water, Bibles, and crucifixes to ward off the undead.
22:06Pistols, a stake, garlic, everything you might need to slay a vampire.
22:14This is classic Bram Stoker, straight from the pages of his novel Dracula, written in the late 19th century.
22:23In the 19th century, communities were swept by actual vampire panic.
22:29In certain places, whole villages would unearth their dead and drive stakes through their hearts to ensure that they could
22:37not rise again.
22:39This box actually seems like it's from the late 19th century, which would make it authentic to the time period
22:45from which Dracula was written.
22:47And this particular vampire hunting box is personalized.
22:52The lid, the mallet, the stake, they're all engraved with Lord Haley's initials W-M-H.
23:00It suggests that Lord Haley took this subject very seriously.
23:06So it opens up the possibility that Lord Haley considered himself a vampire slayer.
23:12Whatever Lord Haley's motives may be, no one will ever know.
23:17You would think were this a curiosity or something made in an homage to vampire hunting, he would display it.
23:26Yet no one's ever heard of it before.
23:29He kept it secret to his grave.
23:31This clearly meant something to him.
23:33It wasn't just some curio.
23:35This was initialed with his name.
23:37He really cared about this, and it's something that he saved.
23:40When he dies, the box that he never spoke of while he was alive just disappears.
23:48And for the next 50 years, it's not heard of.
23:52Until in the 2020s, it's discovered at an antique fair.
23:58When it's put up for auction, the kit sells for just shy of 17,000 pounds, or roughly 21 grand.
24:13It's not only vampires and zombies that rise from the grave.
24:17Just wait till you hear about the next guy.
24:24It's early morning.
24:25Dawn is just breaking.
24:26And at the Rose Hill Memorial Cemetery, they're not burying a body.
24:30They are digging one up.
24:33This is being done in total secrecy.
24:36Why are they doing this at 6 in the morning?
24:40As the coffin is brought to the surface, the rotten wood is broken away, revealing the corpse of Lee Harvey
24:47Oswald.
24:49It has been 18 years since the assassination of JFK.
24:54And that whole time, Lee Harvey Oswald has been the subject of all kinds of rumors and stories.
25:03One of the rumors was that the man that pulled the trigger wasn't even Lee Harvey Oswald, but a double.
25:10The rumor works like this.
25:12In 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald defects to the Soviet Union.
25:16They send him to Detachment 13, which is the KGB's assassination squad, where a body double is trained to take
25:26his place.
25:27It's this doppelganger who returns to the U.S. in 1962 with a wife and child in tow.
25:35And so the argument is that it is this body double who shoots JFK, and it's this body double who's
25:41buried in the cemetery in Fort Worth.
25:44Now, the evidence is pretty sketchy, but here's the thing.
25:47Lee Harvey Oswald's widow, Marina, she is starting to believe those crazy stories.
25:54And that's why federal agents are now digging up the body of Lee Harvey Oswald with the widow of that
26:01man watching from just a short distance away.
26:05And who exactly is inside the coffin?
26:08Turns out it is, in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald, proven beyond a doubt by his dental records.
26:17After which he's put into a new coffin and laid in a new vault.
26:21But what about the old coffin?
26:25The owner of the funeral parlor keeps it, puts it in his back room, and thinks one day it'll be
26:30worth something.
26:32When he finally takes it to an auction in 2010, he makes a killing of $87,000.
26:39But that's not where the story ends.
26:43Back in 63, when Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby, Marina is broke.
26:48She's broke because Lee Harvey Oswald is a loser.
26:50They are penniless.
26:52So Lee's brother Robert steps in and spends $300 on a casket for Lee to be buried.
26:58There's no one else to pay for it.
26:59So his brother pays for the coffin, Lee's buried, and hardly anybody shows up for his funeral.
27:04This man had just allegedly killed the president.
27:06He was a pariah.
27:09So when the funeral director sells the coffin for $87,000, Robert takes him to court.
27:16And he says, listen, I paid for the coffin, so technically it's mine.
27:20The judge decides the original coffin belongs to his brother, Robert.
27:28The judge orders the funeral director to pay Robert $87,000 in damages and orders him to return the coffin
27:36as well.
27:36But rather than putting it up for auction a second time, Robert decides it's time to destroy it.
27:47Ever since its first execution in 1890, the electric chair has fascinated and terrified us in equal measure.
27:55Believe it or not, there has always been a market for old Sparky.
28:01It's 2018 and a particularly macabre item is up for auction.
28:08It's made of oak.
28:10It's about 50 inches high, 29 inches wide, and there's a few stains on it.
28:15And in the catalog, it's described as an electric chair.
28:20The question is, is it a real electric chair or is it a fake?
28:25If it is the real thing, this would be one of the most gruesome auction items ever.
28:33Electric chairs claiming to be the real deal frequently come up for auction, but almost immediately they're debunked.
28:39They're fakes.
28:40A lot of these electric chairs are made by prop houses or were made for movies or even by collectors.
28:46What collectors really want is an electric chair that someone was executed with.
28:51Because if someone has been executed in the chair, it has a certain kind of mojo.
28:56It's grim.
28:57It's gruesome.
28:59But it's a fact.
29:02The question of whether or not this chair was used will determine its price.
29:09This story goes that a Pennsylvania prison guard purchased it in 1940 as the penitentiary he was at retired one
29:19and installed a new one.
29:21The chair certainly looks real because it comes with all of the accessories that you would expect to see associated
29:27with an electric chair.
29:28For starters, it has the shoulder restraints, restraints for the wrists and for the legs.
29:33And it has all the original buckles.
29:35And then it has a headrest with faux leather and terry cloth covering it.
29:41It's even got a removable panel under the seat where you would place a bucket as prisoners would loosen their
29:48bowels upon being electrocuted.
29:50It really looks real.
29:52But is it?
29:54One thing that's missing from this electric chair is the metal cap that attaches to the head.
30:00And that's where the current would go through.
30:02This doesn't have that, which is really interesting.
30:07That seems like a glaring omission, but that's actually a real clue.
30:12Only film props or fakes will actually have that metal cap.
30:18Almost all the electric chairs you see at auction, they all come with the metal cap and it's attached to
30:23the electric chair.
30:24But it's nonsense.
30:25That's not the way electric chairs work.
30:28That metal cap, it's attached to the wall behind the chair because that's where the power source is.
30:34It's not attached to the chair.
30:36The metal cap's omission most likely indicates that this is the real deal.
30:42So everything adds up that this is an authentic electric chair.
30:47And one disturbing thing that lends credence to that theory, the arms are worn from repeated use.
30:56It's a gruesome artifact.
31:00But one collector is prepared to outbid the rest for a chance to own a grim piece of history and
31:06pays 20 grand.
31:08Even though the authenticity of the chair cannot be 100% guaranteed.
31:18Napoleon wasn't the only one to lose an intimate body part.
31:22Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear and gifted it to a prostitute.
31:25But that wasn't the only gruesome memento he left behind.
31:34There's this little town a little north of Paris.
31:37It's called Auvers-sur-Oise.
31:39And a farmer is in the field, kind of behind the chateau, and he notices something in the mud.
31:46And he reaches down and he picks it up and it's a severely corroded revolver.
31:56He doesn't want this old rusted piece of metal because it's worthless.
31:59It's a non-functioning revolver.
32:02So he takes it to the inn in town and gives it to the landlady there.
32:07And it becomes this thing at the bar that everybody can look at that just kind of makes the place
32:13have some character.
32:15This revolver, as it turned out, it's Belgian manufactured.
32:19It was made by the La Foscia Company in the 19th century.
32:22They were manufactured up until 1893.
32:25This was a widely produced firearm.
32:27It was used on a limited basis within the French military.
32:31They're even used extensively in the American Civil War.
32:33But it's also commercially very popular in Europe throughout the second half of the 19th century.
32:40So this revolver, yes, it's an antique, but as far as old guns go, it's kind of the most boring
32:45one you could possibly have.
32:47And so to find one of these in a field in France is neat, but it's not a very big
32:52deal.
32:52At least it doesn't seem like a big deal.
32:56So the landlady keeps the revolver behind the bar, and she keeps it back there until she passes away.
33:01And then it passes along to her daughter.
33:04It's not until 50 years after its discovery that it catches the eye of a local historian
33:10who happens to be investigating the circumstances surrounding the most famous event ever to happen in this quiet village.
33:19The suicide of Vincent Van Gogh.
33:23And he, unlike everyone else, thinks there's probably a lot more to this gun's story than meets the eye.
33:29Could this be the missing gun?
33:34This revolver is only the second most interesting thing that's ever been in the inn at Auvers-sur-Oise.
33:40The most interesting thing is a person.
33:44Back in 1890, Van Gogh was staying in this village.
33:48He was staying in that very inn, in room five.
33:52This is an extremely productive period in Van Gogh's life.
33:56Because during his time at Auvers-sur-Oise, he produces over 70 oil paintings.
34:02He did tons of paintings, and then he finished his stay by walking out into a field and shooting himself.
34:12He does not die.
34:14Not instantly, anyway.
34:15He stumbles back to town, and his injuries do eventually, though, take his life just a few days later.
34:23One of the enduring mysteries about his death is that the gun he uses has never been found.
34:29Until maybe now.
34:30Can you imagine if the gun Van Gogh used to kill himself was displayed at the very inn he was
34:39staying at when he used it for 50 years and no one put two and two together?
34:45The local historian takes the gun from behind the bar to conduct an analysis of it because he thinks this
34:50might be the gun.
34:51There are a couple of things that stand out.
34:52One, there are soil residues that show that this thing was sitting in the mud for decades.
34:56Now, that really doesn't tell us much because we already knew it was an old gun.
34:59The trigger is in the down or deployed or ready position, which is critical because that indicates that the last
35:07time it was used, after the shot was fired, it was not returned to the safe position.
35:12And the other thing of note, this revolver would have fired a 7mm bullet, which is the exact type of
35:19bullet that killed Van Gogh.
35:22We can't prove this was Van Gogh's gun.
35:27But it sure looks like Van Gogh's gun.
35:29It's good enough for the Van Gogh Museum.
35:32They take the revolver, they build a display, and they anoint it the suicide gun.
35:41It is believed that in his lifetime, Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting.
35:46But today, they sell for more than $100 million.
35:53While in 2019, the gun he uses to shoot himself fetches $180,000.
36:07Some events are so iconic, it's worth holding on to that ticket stub because you never know how much it
36:14will be worth someday.
36:15Like the ticket stub for Jackie Robinson's major league debut, which sold for a staggering $480,000.
36:23And then there's the event that is famous for not only what happened inside the arena, but outside.
36:31The MGM Grand, one of the premier venues to see a boxing match in the world.
36:37Some of the greatest fights have happened there.
36:39And tonight, it's hosting the world heavyweight boxing title.
36:43Now, the promoter is legendary Don King.
36:46And the top of the bill is a battle between WBA champion Bruce Seldon and WC heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
36:58Bruce Seldon has a decent record.
37:0148 fights and 40 wins.
37:03But look, the reason for all the hype is very clearly not because of Seldon.
37:07The reason why people care about this match is because of his opponent, Iron Mike Tyson.
37:14In the 1980s, he's one of the most feared fighters in the world.
37:18His first 19 fights all end in knockouts, a lot of them not lasting past the second round.
37:25There's never any doubts in my mind because I'm the best in the world.
37:29He's also a highly controversial figure.
37:32He was convicted on a rape charge and spent three years in jail.
37:35So this fight is kind of part of his redemption tour.
37:39He put all these elements together and the atmosphere at the MGM, it's electric.
37:46But even though this has all the elements of being a classic fight,
37:50even though a front row ticket costs $1,000 for this,
37:55it's not the fight that makes this night go down in history.
38:00It's gone down in boxing history that the person in Section 4, Row E, Seat 2, is someone special.
38:09At the box office, somebody wrote his name above the seat number
38:13because they wanted to make sure that it went to the right person.
38:17And the name they've scribbled is Tupac.
38:24One of the greatest rappers and most influential musicians of the late 20th century.
38:30So Mike Tyson puts Tupac Shakur and Death Row Records label boss Suge Knight ringside
38:36right in the front row as guests of honor.
38:40By this point, Tupac and Tyson have become friends.
38:44They've bonded over their shared time in prison.
38:47They're both young African-American men in the heights of their talent and powers.
38:54Tyson enters the ring as a Tupac song booms through the arena.
39:00He knocks out Selden in the first round.
39:03It's really not much of a fight.
39:05The entire contest lasts a minute and 49 seconds.
39:09It's a short fight, but that's not the point.
39:12Because all eyes are now on Tupac.
39:17Tupac embraces Tyson, congratulates him on his win.
39:20And as they're leaving the arena, he takes his ticket stub
39:24and just hands it to a random person in the crowd and says,
39:28There you go, boy. Enjoy.
39:31In the lobby of the casino, Tupac's posse runs into Orlando Anderson.
39:35Now, Orlando is a member of the Crips.
39:38Tupac and his posse are affiliated with the Bloods.
39:40These are both West Coast gangs, and they do not get along.
39:44So Anderson gets swarmed,
39:47and he gets viciously, viciously beaten.
39:51And that is an attack that is captured in full on the hotel security cameras.
39:56Whether or not what happened there leads to what's next,
40:00we don't really know.
40:02We can only speculate.
40:04Two hours later, Suge Knight and Tupac are cruising the Vegas Strip in a black BMW.
40:12At a red stoplight, a white Cadillac pulls up beside them.
40:16Window comes down, arm comes out with a gun, and fire shots into Tupac's car.
40:23Tupac is hit four times, and six days later, he dies in hospital.
40:29So that ticket stub now becomes a piece of both boxing and hip-hop history.
40:36This is one of the last items ever to be touched by Tupac while he was still alive.
40:41The guy who Tupac gave his ticket stub to wants to remain anonymous,
40:45and under the circumstances, who can blame him?
40:48It quickly passes hands, but then that collector keeps it in his possession for the next 20 years.
40:55When he finally puts it up for auction,
40:57no one knows how to price it or really what to expect.
41:00It's just a ticket stub that's been touched by Tupac.
41:05But it's also something directly linked to his murder that he decided to give away.
41:10Flash forward to 2017, and the hammer drops at 24-5.
41:16Which just goes to show that the grizzly, the gruesome, and the gory
41:22all have value if someone's prepared to pay for it.
41:25And there is money to be made on the dark side.
41:48We'll see you next time.
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