Collecting Daily: March 7, 2026

Good morning collectors. It’s Saturday, March 7, 2026. London has had a bright modern art week, and we have a big upcoming sale for a famous Fender. This is everything a collector needs to know today. Launching daily soon. Sign up for free here.

Breaking News

Irsay Collection is era-defining pop culture sale

The Fender guitar from Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit video. The original manuscript of Kerouac’s On the Road. Ringo’s first drum kit. Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, Clapton, Elton John, Miles Davis, Steve Jobs, Prince, Buddy Holly, Ali…

The first of the Jim Irsay Collection sales opens at Christie’s New York on Thursday. High estimates for the 44-lot Hall of Fame sale range from $40,000 to $5 million. It’s expected to make close to $40 million. Two more days of sales follow alongside an online auction. The results of these sales will be a snapshot capturing the health of high-end collecting in a number of markets. It’s a must watch.

Moore, Bacon star at London modern and contemporary art sales

A Henry Moore sculpture sold for £26.3 million at Christie’s, and Sotheby’s announced two white-glove art sales last week.

Moore’s King and Queen sold for £26.3 million against a £15 million top estimate as Christie’s three 20/21 evening sales brought in £197.5 million, a 52% increase on the total achieved last year. Surrealist art performed particularly well.

Sotheby’s evening sale was centred on the Joe Lewis collection, which brought in £35.8 million including £16 million for Francis Bacon’s 1972 Self-Portrait, double its low estimate. Another Sotheby’s sale sold out and their four modern and contemporary auctions made over £154 million. Big-name items that rarely come to market brought the biggest international collectors to London.

In the Know

Selling This Week

Jobs lot: A 1980 Steve Jobs worn suit will close at Julien’s on Thursday with a $30,000 top estimate. Photo evidence adds value.
Revenge served: A withdrawn Revenge [for Return] of the Jedi poster from 1983 is already at 10 times its $300 estimate at PropStore’s movie posters sale due to close tomorrow.

Sold Last Week

Wilt strong: A 1959 Wilt Chamberlain game-worn Philadelphia Warriors rookie jersey and shorts made $2.7 million at Heritage Auctions.

Limited print: A 2011 Hockney print, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, sold for £281,600 against a £180,000 top estimate at Sotheby’s. It was numbered 15/25.

Events & Exhibitions

Inside the mechanism: You can now buy advance tickets for the Watches and Wonders show in Geneva in April. Audemars Piguet come on board this year, and most names that matter in watches will be there.

Complex art: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York hosts its 82nd biennial from Sunday. It’s “American art’s proving ground” says Artsy. “A vivid atmospheric survey of contemporary American art shaped by a moment of profound transition,” says the Whitney.

New Hockneys: The new David Hockney show at Serpentine North in Hyde Park, London has 10 fresh works alongside Hockney’s huge Bayeux Tapestry-inspired A Year in Normandie. Free from Thursday.

A-Z

Baseball cards: The second T206 Honus Wagner to sell in a week has made $3.6 million at Heritage Auctions. That added a million to this example’s value since its last sale in 2021, despite being too damaged to receive a condition grade.

Books: Firsts, London’s rare book fair in May, will be themed around Revolution. Exhibitors will take the American Revolution of 1776 as a jumping off point for their offerings.

Cars: Bonhams will auction Barry Sheene’s 1977 world championship-winning Suzuki RG500 motorcycle in April. It’s a “once-in-a-generation” chance to secure the machine says the house.

Comics: A new Comic Art Festival will open in Kona, Hawaii next January. The event will bring together the best artists with high-end collectors, who will pay big money for luxurious and exclusive access to the top creators.

Coins: The second release of circulation-quality 2026 Semiquincentennial quarter dollars from the Philadelphia and Denver Mints will go on sale on March 27.

Digital: The US Supreme Court has effectively ruled that AI art cannot be copyrighted. They declined to hear an appeal to a lower court’s decision that clear human authorship was required for copyright protection.

Militaria: The WWII medals won by Major F W Jackson will be sold at Noonan’s Mayfair on March 18. Jackson led the London Fire Brigade during the Blitz and helped save St Paul’s from fires.

Numismatics: Young adults have until May 1 to apply for Stack’s Bowers fully-funded Professional Numismatist Program that runs in July in California.

Sports memorabilia: Scottie Pippen is the latest NBA star to get an auction in his name, with next week’s sale of his personal collections at Sotheby’s, New York. Bids over $100,000 are already in.

Toys: Lego is likely to join the Pokemon frenzy with leaks suggesting a Pokeball-based set will appear this summer.

Watches: Russell Crowe has an undercover TikTok account @igp366 that he uses to share his watch obsession. The actor has the resources to indulge his taste and there’s lots to learn there.

A Quick Dip Into…

Fender Guitars

• The company was founded by Leo Fender in 1938 in Fullerton, California
• He repaired radios, then made his own amps, finally electric instruments
• 1950’s Esquire was their first electric guitar – a tiny number were made before it was renamed the Broadcaster
• Esquires now commonly sell for tens of thousands of dollars
• The Stratocaster (1954) and Telecaster (the Broadcaster renamed again) are key to the birth and growth of rock ‘n’ roll
• Subsequent demand forced Leo to sell his company to CBS in 1965, and “pre-CBS” models now carry a premium
• In the 1980s, most production was switched to Japan, and Made-in-Japan guitars are also highly valued
• Two of the top five most valuable guitars ever sold are Fenders
• Kurt Cobain’s Fender Mustang from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video sold for $4.5 million in 2022
• It sells again this week

The Secret Auctioneer

Are records what they seem?

Numismatists have seen plenty of them lately: a 1794 Flowing Hair dollar for $4.5 million, an 1804 silver dollar for $6 million…

News reporters like records, to the extent that some specialist press has started wondering if the reporting of the superlatives is off-putting to new collectors.

Some new records this year though, might not be all they seem. Two of the biggest coin sellers, Stack’s Bowers and Heritage Auctions, have both raised their buyer’s premium, which by itself could push some big items through records.

And if these rises ripple out across the market, it could see prices rising more generally.

Whatnots

Tick Tock time

As we head towards the Spring watch sales, here are 5 top rated and rising Rolex related searches in the UK this last week.

1. Rolex Datejust
2. Rolex Daytona
3. Rolex Submariner
4. Rolex Oyster
5. Rolex GMT

Top rising queries were “Kristi Noem Rolex”, “Rolex Pepsi discontinued” and “Rolex Air King price”.

Quirky: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster initiated their most famous creation as a villain. Their self-published story The Reign of the Superman starred a bald, telepathic megalomaniac. It appeared in January 1933, a few months before Siegel started to work on good Superman.

Anniversary this week: On March 12, 1969 George Harrison’s stash was (maybe) found in his bungalow, Kinfauns, in Esher. Led by Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, the police emerged with 120 joints and a lump of hash. Harrison said the hash was planted. And later that the joints were too. George and wife Patti were convicted and fined, and Pilcher (who also arrested three Rolling Stones, Donovan, and John Lennon) was years later imprisoned for perverting the course of justice.

“A picture is worth a thousand words, but a comic is worth a million.”

Stan Lee

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