{"id":23317,"date":"2026-06-12T08:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/diane-keatons-nail-clippers-for-960-whats-behind-the-new-boom-in-celebrity-estate-auctions-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:58:08","slug":"diane-keatons-nail-clippers-for-960-whats-behind-the-new-boom-in-celebrity-estate-auctions-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/diane-keatons-nail-clippers-for-960-whats-behind-the-new-boom-in-celebrity-estate-auctions-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Diane Keaton\u2019s nail clippers for $960: what\u2019s behind the new boom in celebrity estate auctions? – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

With beloved stars\u2019 personal items increasingly up for grabs after they die, a new generation of fans are bidding on everything from bowler hats to dog bowls
F<\/span>rom Diane Keaton\u2019s bowler hats and polka dot scarfs, to Gene Hackman\u2019s used paint brushes, to Terence Stamp\u2019s love letters from Jean Shrimpton and even Matthew Perry\u2019s black leather wallet (his credit cards and AAA membership card still inside), fans are being offered \u2013 at a price \u2013 increasingly personal items from the estates of dead celebrities.
The growing trend for auctions of deceased famous people\u2019s personal items \u2013 which has boomed ever since the hugely popular Marilyn Monroe estate sale in 1999<\/a> \u2013 has even attracted its own portmanteau: \u201cdeleb\u201d as in dead celebrity.
The first of no fewer than four auctions of Keaton\u2019s professional and personal items went on sale at Bonhams in New York earlier this week with her original Annie Hall script<\/a> selling for $394,000, way more than its $2,000 estimate.
Several of her trademark hats sold for thousands of dollars, including a black felt Neogranadine (modern day Colombia) cup hat<\/a> that she wore in an Instagram video teaching fans how hats can be used to enhance their best features. It sold for $5,888, including buyer\u2019s premium, many multiples of its $200-300 estimate. A box of six of her trademark brown polka dot scarfs<\/a> \u2013 that was also estimated to sell for $200-300 \u2013 sold for $6,144. A \u201ccurated box\u201d <\/a>of safety pins and nail clippers went for $960. The first Keaton auction raised $1.2m, with 47 of the 50 lots selling for more than their estimate.
In total, Bonhams, in collaboration with celebrity specialist The Fine Art Group, will sell 787 of Keaton\u2019s items. They range from original collages by Keaton and a Gucci sequin suit and beret worn to the Lacma charity gala in 2021, to personal and prosaic items including a \u201cjob lot\u201d of her trademark black turtlenecks, a collection of kitchen chopping boards and dog food bowls.
Shane David Hall, director of Fine Art Group\u2019s high-profile client division, says fans are increasingly keen to own celebrities\u2019 personal items and not just items related to their professional lives like film scripts or art collections.
\u201cOver the past 20 years the personal legacy market has really exploded,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople really feel a personal connection to celebrities and how they have influenced their own lives, and there is a real desire to own something of theirs to keep and deepen that connection.\u201d
Hall says it is celebrities with cult followings, such as Keaton and Perry, that attract the most interest and where the interest is perhaps more focused on personal objects than professional items.
\u201cThere is a new generation of collectors with disposal income, and they are more aligned to celebrities and athletes than their parents,\u201d Hall says. \u201cWith people like Diane Keaton, they really mean something to their fans, these are people that grew up with her films and her iconic wardrobe. Items of Diane\u2019s are sentimental to them, there are pieces that fit in the trajectory of their own lives and remind them of significant moments in their own story. And of course they make great conversation topics, one could argue more so than an artwork by a famous artist.\u201d
Hall says knowing that so many of Keaton\u2019s items would resonate with fans led to such a large collection going up for sale. \u201cWe like to have some value points that are accessible so there is the opportunity for everyone no matter their budget.\u201d
At the more affordable end was lot no 2216 <\/a>of the second auction \u201cTailored & Timeless\u201d \u2013 four pairs of her thick-rimmed prescription reading glasses which had an estimate of $200-300 (it sold for $2,176).
Bonhams, which also handled the auctions of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barbara Walters, Lauren Bacall, Michael Caine and Hackman, says estate sales are an increasingly large part of its business with sales in that division up 185% last year, and up by an average of 28.5% every year since 2022.
\u201cWe sold Gene Hackman\u2019s collection in 2025 and achieved more than $3m. Apart from Hackman\u2019s fine art collection, we found that his three Golden Globes were among the most sought after lots, exceeding their presale expectations by up to 17-times and bringing in a collective total of more than $125,000,\u201d says Anna Hicks, Bonhams\u2019 head of private and iconic collections.
\u201cFans often place significant value on items associated with a public figure they care about, and as a result, those pieces frequently command a premium well beyond what similar items might achieve without the celebrity association.\u201d
For example, Hicks says, every lot in the Library of Ruth Bader Ginsburg sold for above its estimate. Her heavily annotated copy of the 1957\u201358 Harvard Law Review \u2013 the year she became a member \u2013 sold for $100,312.
With so much potential profit at stake, securing the rights to celebrity estates has also become big business in itself. Specialist advisers, such as the Fine Art Group, and celebrity-focused auction houses, such as LA\u2019s Julien\u2019s Auctions and New York\u2019s Heritage Auctions, are investing time and money getting to know celebrities and their families so that when the inevitable time comes their heirs are more likely to call on them.
\u201cWe\u2019ve spent decades building up relationships with high profile families,\u201d says Hall. \u201cI would say we are the only firm that looks at the unique challenges of celebrities in this way. Other firms make the mistake of treating celebrities the same as any rich private client, but they\u2019re not, they require significant hand-holding and a lot of personal connection.\u201d
Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien\u2019s Auctions, says he first became aware of the potential profit in celebrity estates when his former boss at investment bank Merrill Lynch Martin Zweig bought Monroe\u2019s \u201cHappy Birthday Mr President\u201d dress for a world record $1.27m in 1999.
\u201cI thought he was crazy, and it made me think twice about his stock-picking,\u201d Nolan says. \u201cBut when he died his widow entrusted us to sell his collection, and she told me she just wanted him to be proved right that the dress was worth that much. We sold it in 2016 for $4.81m to Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not! museum.\u201d
Nolan says securing the rights to celebrities\u2019 estates is \u201cextremely competitive\u201d and he spends years building relationships. \u201cWe\u2019re the only auction house that specialises only in celebrities, while Sotheby\u2019s, Christie\u2019s and Bonhams dip in and out, we do this every day,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd celebrities talk to each other, and we have a good reputation in terms of preserving and celebrating their estates.\u201d
Typically, he says, auction houses take 20% of the proceeds from the sale, \u201cbut it can get very competitive on price\u201d he says, with some auction houses treating celebrity estates as \u201closs leaders\u201d in return for the glamour that comes from association.
Nolan agrees that buyers of celebrity items are getting younger and younger, but says they cover all sorts of demographics and are from across the world. The most interesting thing he says about buyers is that \u201cthey are often celebrities themselves\u201d.
\u201cCelebrities are just like you or I, they have people that they look up to and admire and when they sadly pass they also want to have something to remember them by.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With beloved stars\u2019 personal items increasingly up for grabs after they die, a new generation of fans are bidding on everything from bowler hats to dog bowlsFrom Diane Keaton\u2019s bowler hats and polka dot scarfs, to Gene Hackman\u2019s used paint brushes, to Terence Stamp\u2019s love letters from Jean Shrimpton and even Matthew Perry\u2019s black leather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}