Sotheby's and Louis Vuitton are hosting a charity auction to raise money for the Red Cross in London tomorrow. The auction includes a Louis Vuitton Red Cross Kit pictured above. It also includes designs by Ferran Adria, Damien Hirst, Annie Leibotivz, Marc Jabocs and others. Below is a medical cabinet designed by Damien Hirst. Sotheby's has set up special mini-site here for the auction.
CNN reports that what could be John F. Kennedy's final autograph sold for $39,000 at an auction. JFK signed the front page of the Dallas Morning News for a Dallas woman on the morning of the day he was assassinated.
Kennedy reportedly signed the front page of the Dallas Morning News, which contained a photo of him and the first lady and a preview of their arrival that day in Dallas.
A Dallas woman handed the president the newspaper and he signed it for her, according to Heritage Auctions, the company that sold the item. The date of his assassination, which came about two hours later, was on the front page of that paper near his signature.
"It's chillingly historic because it documents the day, documents the location and it's certainly one of the last signatures of John Kennedy," Doug Norwine, a director at Heritage Auctions told CNN affiliate KDAF.
CNN says the person who bought the autograph immediately insured it for millions.
Celebrities and designers decorated houses to raise money for Women In Need, Inc. (WIN), an organization that provides housing, help and hope to New York City women and their families who are homeless and disadvantaged. The houses are being auctioned off online in an auction that runs until November 30th. Houses were designed by Sean Avery; Lidia Bastianich; the Beckham family; Halle Berry; Mary J. Blige; Chris "Ludacris" Bridges; Bobbi Brown; Cast of the Broadway Musical Hair; Cast of the Broadway play Race; Cast of the Broadway play Superior Donuts; Sean "Diddy" Combs; Oscar de la Renta; Cheyenne Jackson; Donna Karan; Monica Rich Kosann; Dylan Lauren; Richard Leach for Park Avenue Autumn; Deborah Lloyd for Kate Spade; Jennifer Lopez; Isaac Mizrahi; Moby; Debra Messing; Josie Natori; George Rodrigue; Cameron Silver for Decades; Justin Timberlake & Trace Ayala; Today Show Anchors; Diane Von Furstenberg and Vera Wang. Parsons The New School for Design collaborated on several of the house designs.
Diddy's house feature a helicopter on top. You can bid on it here.
Isaac Mizrahi designed his house to be like a jewelry box that opens up. It's fabulous. Bidding is already at $1,750 for Isaac's house. You can bid on it here.
Bobbi Brown's house designed for WIN resembles her makeup collections. You can bid on it here.
All the WIN celebrity designed houses can be found here on charitybuzz.com.
eBay has launched the Inside Source,
an online magazine that will spotlight some of the products available on eBay and highlight trends. The site also contains data from eBay such a keyword cloud showing the "most searched items on eBay." The top searched terms are currently dominated by name brands.
"Imagine that every day, every person in the United States tells eBay what they
want," said Alan Marks, Senior Vice President of Global Communications for eBay.
"That's the power of how many searches occur on eBay every day. Now add insights
gleaned from almost 200 million live product listings, the stories of more than
25 million sellers and the several million purchases people make each day on
eBay, and you get The Inside Source - a perspective on shopping trends, pop
culture obsessions and the stuff people love, that only eBay can offer."
Meredith Barnett says, "The Inside Source content will reflect what inspires us on eBay, from a profile of an art dealer discovering museum-quality pieces to a breakdown of the hottest trends in handbags. There's such a diverse array of stories. We hope to provide readers insight they won't get anywhere else."
U.S. Customs confiscated two lovely, 2,000 year old urns that were illegally exported into the U.S. Officials said that the illegal antiquities trade is robbing countries of their heritage. U.S. Customs said that the urns were scheduled to be sold at auction at Christie's. Take a look:
A Chicago auction house is putting a clump of what it claims is Elvis Presley's hair up for auction. The auction listing for the hair from Leslie Hindman Auctioneers can be found here. John Reznikoff, an expert in celebrity hair authentication, said, "the hair appears to match the hair in my collection [from same U.S. Army haircut] in coarseness and color . . . this is more than likely a genuine lock of Elvis' hair short of a DNA test (often inconclusive) proving otherwise."
The value of the hair is said to be between $8,000 and $12,000. Celebrity hair has been used to make diamonds in the past. You can see a diamond created from Beethoven's hair here.
The Elvis hair clump with be auctioned with other Elvis memorabilia on Sunday, October 18th.
A woman from Alabama paid $63,500 to win the online auction for a private dinner for five with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The bidding started at $25,000 and there were 61 bids according to eBay. Take a look:
Scarlett Johansson is auctioning a chance to meet her at the red carpet premiere of Iron Man 2. The auction runs from September 17th until September 24th on eBay and benefits Oxfam. Colin Firth is also auctioning a meet on the London premiere of Disney's A Chrismast Carol. Colin Firth's auction runs from September 24th to October 1st. Chef Giada De Laurentiis is offering a chance to meet for lunch in Los Angeles. Giada's auction runs from October 1st to October 8th.
PC Worldreports that a company known as the "Chinese eBay" has a goal of reaching 1 billion global users on its Taobao.com website. They are far away from that target now. The site gets about 25 million shoppers daily.
Alibaba Group, Taobao's parent company, wants 1 billion global users shopping on the site in 10 years, group CEO Jack Ma earlier told reporters. The target, more than one-seventh of the world's population, compares with Taobao's current average of up to 25 million shoppers each day, said Ma.
"We have a long way to go," he said.
Alibaba Group, which also operates an online payment platform and Alibaba.com, a top site for businesses to trade wares, has increasingly shown global ambitions. The group recently launched a major U.S. advertising campaign for Alibaba.com, and Ma early this year led a team of executives to discuss potential partnerships with U.S. companies including Google, Amazon.com and eBay.
PC World says Taobao has no transaction or item posting fees and makes money primarily from advertising. They really need to offer an English version of the website if they really want to expand.
The New York Post is reporting that designer Narciso Rodriguez is close to partnering with eBay for a small eight piece clothing collection. Prices for the pieces in the collection will range from $75 to $350.
"I've never sold anything at these kinds of prices," Rodriguez told The Post, noting that the eight pieces in the eBay collection will be offered from $75 to $350 each. "This gets my work to a wider audience."
Rodriguez and eBay declined to discuss terms of their pact. But eBay spokesman Alan Marks portrayed the auction site as an outlet for designers looking to increase their distribution and appeal on more favorable financial terms.
This is a very interesting idea and it will certainly attract people to eBay to see what Rodriquez has to offer. Rodriquez says the eBay deal is a different strategy than partnering with a retailer for a diffusion line. He says launching a lower-priced line can mean hundreds of different pieces and monthly deliveries.
Rodriguez said the small collection for eBay -- which may be repeated in seasons to come -- is a way of skirting the demands of creating a permanent, lower-priced line, which typically means "hundreds of pieces and deliveries every month."
Like other sellers, Rodriguez will pay 35 cents to list an item for 30 days under eBay's "Buy it Now" option, and will pay another fee once the item is sold. Marks said the terms are such that Rodriguez can boast of "double-digit" profit margins.
The New York Post article says the "Narciso Rodriguez for eBay" collection will launch next Spring.
National Jewelerreports that Bonhams and Butterfields will be auctioning a very large cat's eye chrysoberyl ring in Los Angeles on December 6th. The ring contains a 47.8 carat cabochon and is expected to fetch as much as $140,000.
The stone's cabochon weighs an impressive 47.8 carats--many times greater than the typical 1 to 5 carats found commercially available on the market, Bonhams said in a media release. The gem is set in a platinum mount and surrounded by 32 marquise-cut diamonds. It is estimated to fetch between $120,000 and $140,000.
"The cat's eye stone is highly sought after by connoisseurs, gemstone and jewelry collectors," Natural History Co-Consulting Director Claudia Florian said in the release. "Interest in chrysoberyl jewelry, for both men and women, has grown exponentially in the past several years. The larger gemstones, such as the 47.8-carat example featured in the holiday auction, are extremely rare."
Bonhams has a smaller cat's eye going up for auction in London on September 23rd.
Dinner for five with Sarah Palin is being auctioned on eBay to raise money for the Ride 2 Recovery program, whose mission is to improve the health and wellness of wounded veterans. The bidding will start at $25,000. The auction will go live on eBay here beginning September 8th. You can also bid on dinner with GOP strategist Karl Rove. Bidding only starts at $7,500 for the lesser-valued Rove.
Bloombergreports that eBay has sold Skype to an investor group led by Silver Lake for about $2 billion. EBay CEO John Donahoe said Skype does not fit with the rest of eBay's business.
The sale lessens Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe's dependence on a unit that he has said doesn't fit with the rest of EBay's operations. His predecessor bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005 and wrote down its value a year later. Private investors will probably push Skype beyond the consumer market, said Vanessa Alvarez, a Frost & Sullivan Inc. analyst in Boston.
"They've really been making an initiative to move into the business space," Alvarez said. "That's the next step for this market."
The other investors in the group are Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital firm headed by Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen; Index Ventures, a firm that invested in Skype before EBay bought it; and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which invested $300 million. The others didn't disclose how much they paid.
There was confusion as to why eBay wanted Skype in the first place but it was related to the company's PayPal business and ecommerce goals at the time of purchase. Skype is an internet phone service that lets PC users talk to each other free of charge. Skype makes money selling voice mail accounts and when users sent text messages or call regular phones. eBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype in 2002 and wanted to create a "an unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine."
The L.A. Timesreports that the state of California is looking to eBay for revenue. The California government is hosting the Great California Garage Sale. The garage sale runs Friday, August 28 (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and Saturday, August 29, 2009 (7 a.m. to 12 p.m.). Governor Schwarzenegger is reducing the state's fleet and cleaning out surplus property.
Governor Schwarzenegger has also put some cars and jewelry on eBay. Governor Schwarzenegger even autographed some of the vehicles - an idea he got from Twitter users.
Need a 2001 Ford Focus wagon with 110,059 miles and Schwarzenegger's autograph on the visor? Someone did, offering the high bid of $1,625.01 for the old state car as of Tuesday afternoon. The governor got the idea to sign the visors from one of nearly 1 million people who follow him on Twitter, and he jumped on it.
"I look forward to selling these signed cars and making some $ for California," the governor tweeted last week as he autographed the visors.
"It's an innovative idea," said the governor's spokesman, Aaron McLear. "We're always happy to listen to the people about ways in which we can run government more efficiently."
You can find California's garage sale listings on eBay here and on Craigslist here.
The Television Academy Foundation running a special online charity auction hosted by eBay Giving Works. Items being auctioned include set visits, red carpet seating, VIP tickets and autographed merchandise. Here are some highlights:
Red Carpet Bleacher seating for 61st Primetime Emmy Arrivals
Set visit to the new Melrose Place
Experience a table read for Emmy-Nominated Family Guy
Visit the set of Emmy-winning Monk during a finale season episode
Signed props from Emmy-Nominated shows like House
The auction runs until September 3rd. You find all the auction listings here - scroll down on the page to see the listings. All proceeds will benefit the Television Academy Foundation's educational outreach programs.
PC World 
National Jeweler 
Bloomberg 
The L.A. Times 
The Television Academy Foundation running a special online charity auction hosted by eBay Giving Works. Items being auctioned include set visits, red carpet seating, VIP tickets and autographed merchandise. Here are some highlights:
