Gatsby and an $18,000 Guinea Pig Picture: Bonhams & Butterfields Book Auction
Pssst...wanna buy an expensive book? How about a guinea pig painting?
Bonhams & Butterfields is auctioning off some fine books and manuscripts this Sunday (9 a.m.). They've got a Beatrix Potter original watercolor of a super-cute guinea pig grooming himself. How much will this super-cuteness set you back? It's estimated at $12,000 - $18,000. That is one pricy rodent.
Also up for grabs: a "spectacular" copy of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (fifteen grand for that one), a first edition Great Gatsby (which, by the way is reality TV star Lauren Conrad's favorite book; no joke!), and a first edition of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar published under her pseudonym Victoria Lucas.
You can either (a) put a down payment on a house, or (b) snap up a copy of Euclid's Elementa geometriae, for an estimated $50,000 - $70,000. It contains his proof of the Pythagorean theorem.
Euclid's Elements, yours for $50,000
Victoria who? Oh, Sylvia Plath.
Or for around the same amount, you can pick up three signed copies of James Watson and Frances Crick's groundbreaking articles on the structure of DNA.
The physical sale will take place in San Francisco, but it will be simulcast here in Los Angeles. You can bid online through the Bonhams system.
The book is also "annotated with a figure of a duck. The duck insignia is much rarer than some of Steinbeck's other doodles."
Two thousand dollars (or so) for this first edition Gatsby. That's about the cost of a Louis Vuitton purse, or two pairs of Louboutin pumps. Which would you buy?
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