Heritage Auctions in Irving will host two auctions over the next two weekends with material from world history and movie history. The auctions begin with Heritage's "Historical Platinum Session" this Saturday.
"It brings history so much closer," said Specialty Collections Auction Manager Samantha Sisler. "As someone who was a history major, it's really important for me to show history coming alive like this."
Among items auctioned off will be a first edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
"That's the exciting thing about this auction," Sisler said. "It's 500 years of human achievement spanning disciplines, countries and eras."
The auction includes a letter written by John Wilkes Booth a year before he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
"That's an incredible piece because it is so different from the Booth we know today as the assassin," Sisler said. "In his time, he was a leading actor. This letter, he's written it after a three day New Year's Eve hangover. The man's so dramatic; he goes on and on about the death of his friend being crushed by a wagon in the snow and his blood spilling out into the snow. It turns out the friend he's talking about is a whiskey flask and the blood is the drink."
Historical items also include drafts written by Mark Twain, notes by Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla.
Other items include sheet music written by Beethoven and Mozart.
"There are scribbles through it. These are works in progress," Sisler said. "He is actively writing stuff down, changing his mind and composing on the fly. It's not a finished piece. It's genius in progress."
The log book from the Enola Gay flight where the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima will be auctioned off as well.
Another lot is a cassock worn and signed by Pope Francis. Proceeds from that item will go toward St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Heritage Hollywood and Entertainment is scheduled for July 22-23.
Among items there is the costume worn by George Clooney in Batman & Robin.
"We are auctioning the infamous nipple costume from Batman & Robin," said Heritage Auctions' Robert Wilonsky. "You can see it as we stand here and stare at it. We gawk at it. We gape at it. We are just thoroughly impressed, are we not, that that is George Clooney in all his titillating glory?"
The Hollywood auction also features a blaster and stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
"That is the movie that birthed the blockbuster. That's the movie we all lined up for and loved in 1977," Wilonsky said. "It's your childhood right in front of you. I think of these things as time machines. That's the extraordinary thing about all these pieces."
Other items include material from Die Hard, Planet of the Apes and The Matrix.
Heritage Auctions also has the first camera used by Walt Disney.
"That's the camera that was owned by Walt Disney and ended up in the hands of three guys who helped found Warner Brothers animation. That's an extraordinary piece. That was there at the birth of Walt Disney and the empire that grew out of it. Now, Star Wars is part of that empire," Wilonsky said. "You have the beginning of Star Wars, the beginning of Disney. This is the very definition of 'Disney Plus'."
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