Valuable Collections

Written By Jimmy Mengel

Posted August 26, 2013

Outside the Numbers

  • 20% – average annual return on the most prestigious cigar collections
  • 21% – average annual return for pre-1969 baseball card dealers
  • 28% – annual return for The Collectors Fund, a fund that buys American masters’ artwork
  • $47,000 – price paid for first edition signed copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
  • $115,000  price paid for tresses of Elvis Presley’s hair 
  • $1,267,500 price paid for Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress 
  • $1.3 million – price paid for the bat used by Babe Ruth to hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium
  • $106.5 million – price paid for Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust”