Celebrated French mime Marcel Marceau left his mark on the world through silence, but his earthly belongings are generating a great deal of noise these days. On Wednesday, Parisian auction house Drouot began the second and final day of bidding on artwork, books, manuscripts and costumes Marceau left behind when he died at the age of 87 in Sept. 2007.

"We have 4,200 over here — certainly an original Marceau merits another bid!" prodded auctioneer Rodolphe Tessier as he stoked the bidding on Marceau's painting The Audience Observing from a reserve price of €800 ($1,080) toward its final sale at €11,000 ($14,850). "Estimating the value of such rare objects as these is impossible — it's the bidding that will determine the price!"

Critics say the bazaar-like atmosphere is hardly fitting. They note that the auction was court-ordered with the limited objective of reimbursing $405,000 in debt Marceau racked up at the end of his life to finance his shows. To ensure that sum was obtained, the auctioneers set astonishingly low opening prices so everything would find a taker.

"This is reducing the artistic legacy of a man to a fixed sum to be paid off," says Stephan Martell, who worked as Marceau's musical director. "For those of us who knew Marcel and how he lived his life and art as one, this random dispersal of his possessions is very painful."

To mitigate that anguish, Martell and long-time Marceau assistant Valérie Bochenek formed the association A Museum for Bip — a reference to the mime's famous sailor-suited character. Its initial aim was to raise $135,000 and buy as many of Marceau's most artistically significant relics as possible — including Bip's trademark costume (for which bids opened on Wednesday at a mere $1,350). Despite collecting over 3,000 signatures of support in less than two weeks, Martell acknowledges the group got significantly less money than hoped for. Still, during Tuesday's auctioning, Bochenek made 10 successful bids worth nearly $7,560.
 

Has Dog’s Playing Poker or Velvet Elvis run the course in your home? Then you’re in luck, because it’s time to upgrade with a nude painting of Madonna with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie.

I know ... nude Madonna? Isn’t that the equivalent of bright sun or wet rain? Not exactly a shocker. But it was this story or something about Mexico approving bidding rules for wireless auctions.

Artist Peter Howson’s controversial depiction of the former couple in oil was painted in 2005. It is expected to fetch up to $35,000 when it goes under the hammer at the McTear’s Scottish Contemporary Art Auction in Glasgow on Saturday from a private collector. Howson has produced several portraits of the pop icon in a state of undress.

The painting depicts a very manly Madonna being groped by Ritchie who looks more like a cross between Mike Tyson and Vinnie Jones (X-Men: The Last Stand and The Midnight Meat Train). If checking out Madonna in the buff is your thing, save a few dollars and the Tums you’ll need to chew after viewing the painting, and grab a copy of her 1992 Sex book that features a little bit of everything except Ritchie.

The Material Girl and director behind Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes ended their almost 8-year marriage in November 2008.

UPDATED: 6.2.09 Failed to sell. 

A collector stands to make a tidy profit after discovering a rare stamp portraying movie star Audrey Hepburn smoking — one of a series that should have been incinerated by the German government.

In 2001, the government printed 14 million Audrey Hepburn stamps as part of a series featuring movie stars including Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. The print run was destroyed after Hepburn's son, Sean Ferrer, objected to the cigarette holder dangling from the actress' mouth and refused to grant copyright. But the Finance Ministry had already delivered advance copies of the Hepburn stamps to Deutsche Post for approval. Thirty of these proof copies escaped destruction when an unknown employee pocketed them and used them to send letters postmarked from Berlin.

A minimum bid of euro30,000 (US$41,959) has been set for the stamp — of which only five copies are known to exist — at its auction Tuesday at Berlin's Kempinski Hotel Bristol.

"We can only guess that whoever took the Hepburn stamps from Deutsche Post didn't realize their value, thought they would save 55 cents and just used them on normal letters," auctioneer Andreas Schlegel told The Associated Press.

UPDATED: 5.27.09 The stamp sold for $93,800 at an auction in Germany Tuesday. Both buyer and seller were anonymous.

A northern Idaho man who tried to auction off a hand-shaped rock formation in his backyard he calls the "Hand of God" has come up empty handed.

But 52-year-old Paul Grayhek of Coeur d'Alene still gives a thumbs-up to the rock that is 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide because he now says he realizes it was meant to help him spread the word of God.

"I'm convinced now that's why the hand showed up in my backyard," he told the Coeur d'Alene Press. "It wasn't just a symbol for me to strengthen my faith, I was supposed to share it."

Grayhek said he discovered the rock in March after a small landslide and determined it was a message from God for Grayhek to follow his dream of becoming a counselor for troubled youth, and that selling the rock would help him pay for school. But he said he "muddled" the auction, though the top bid on eBay was about $16,800.

"I'm not sophisticated at eBay," he said. "I had some people kind of playing me. The first person backed out, then the second person backed out, and the third backed out."

But he said putting the rock up for auction helped it receive worldwide publicity.
 

If you’re in the market for a flip, fixer-up, party house or want to finally get the kids out of your house, these next two days might offer just what you’re looking for as the Auction Network travels to 35 locations to provide online bidding. On the road with real estate auction house Williams & Williams, the AN team is giving you at home, work and wherever the chance to bid on properties from Massachusetts and Rhode Island to Kansas and Missouri.

To bid, you’ll need to be registered and can do so by going to AuctionNetwork.com.

To see the catalog of properties, click here.

Williams & Williams Auction On The Lawn
When: May 19, 2009
Auction Time: 7aC/8aE
What's The Deal?: Twenty-two properties throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Missouri and Kansas auctioned by Williams & Williams with live online bidding powered by Auction Network.
Register: Click here
View Catalog: Click here  

Bankrupt Circuit City's brand, trademarks and e-commerce business have been sold at auction to Systemax Inc., the same company that purchased electronics retailer CompUSA's intellectual property when it closed in 2008. A spokeswoman for Streambank LLC, the intellectual property consulting firm hired by Circuit City Stores Inc., said the assets were sold at auction May 11 to New York-based Systemax. Terms of the deal were not available.

A federal bankruptcy judge in Richmond must approve the sale.

Richmond-based Circuit City entered a so-called stalking horse agreement with Systemax for $6.5 million last month. A stalking horse bid is an initial offer for a bankrupt company's assets. The agreement also includes two and a half years of payments to Circuit City of a portion of Systemax's revenue from the Circuit City Web site.

Systemax manufactures and sells consumer electronics online, by direct mail and in retail stores under the TigerDirect and CompUSA brands. When it bought Dallas-based CompUSA's intellectual property in January 2008 from restructuring firm Gordon Brothers Group LLC, it also acquired some stores.

Systemax has previously said it believes the transaction would "further extend its position as a leader in online retailing of value-priced, branded consumer electronics."

Circuit City closed its 567 remaining U.S. stores on March 8. It has laid off about 34,000 workers since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November. A small staff remains at the corporate office.

As a kid, Ralph Chicorel was careful with the comic books he faithfully bought for 10 cents at the drugstore in his Detroit neighborhood.

"I loved the artwork so much that I took real good care of them. I turned the pages very carefully," the 78-year-old said. "I relished, treasured them."

Chicorel's diligence will likely pay off when 110 or so of the comics he started collecting as an 8-year-old go up for auction soon at Heritage Auction Galleries, an offering that's expected to bring in about $500,000. The sale will begin Thursday with the most important comics, followed by the rest over the weekend.

"These comic books are all very hard to find and if you do find them you're not going to find them in this kind of condition," said Maggie Thompson, senior editor of Iola, Wis.-based Comic Buyer's Guide.

"Some of these are key comics in the field," she said."

The collection boasts the likes of Batman No. 1 and Marvel Comics No. 1. The most expensive comic — expected to clear $100,000 — is the scarce Marvel Mystery Comics No. 9, noted for its cover battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner — the first time two superheroes appeared in the same story, said Heritage's director of comics operations, Barry Sandoval.

UPDATED: 5.27.09 The collection sold for about $623,000 with Marvel Mystery Comics No. 9 going for $108,000.

A black 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa sold in Maranello, Italy on Sunday for $12,402,500, setting a new record for the highest sale price at a public auction.

“The car set a new auction world record as the most expensive motor car ever to be sold at auction,” said Amy Christie, a spokeswoman for RM Auctions, which conducted the third annual Ferrari Leggenda e Passione sale.

The immaculate machine actually sold for a “hammer price” of €8.2 million. But with a buyer’s premium of 10 percent, the official sale price was €9.02 million — or $12,402,500 at current exchange rates, Ms. Christie added. The price was €1.98 million higher than the previous auction record, which was set at the same sale last year. The record previous to that, for those keeping score, was set at the 2007 edition of this Ferrari-sanctioned event.