1 year ago
41
So welcome to the home of Archie and Edith Bunker. This is the most famous house in television history. So let me tell you how amazing and rare this costume is in season one, Jeannie wore this little top. I started doing this in 1989 and I sort of have to set the scene for what things were like in 1989. None of these pieces had any art market value. They didn't even have any historic value. When *** show went off the air, the studios would either sell the props and small things on *** folding table in the parking lot to the cast and crew or they would throw it away. They had, there was no system in place to save or archive anything. When I tell you, they were being actively shoveled into landfills in the early nineties. I am not, I mean, that's not an overestimation. I knew that the clock was ticking and that these great pieces were going to be saved. I'd have to do it. Oh my God. Cheers. The actors who were on the show, they actually carved their names onto this bar surface. This is the Tonight show starring Johnny Carson. I just decided these pieces should go back to the fans and let them enjoy them. And then when that good day comes, when *** TV museum is effectuated, these pieces will be well cared for in the hands of passionate fans and collectors and that's the way they'll live on.
'Cheers' bar sells for $675,000 at Dallas auction of items from classic TV shows
The bar from the television series “Cheers” sold for $675,000 at auction over the weekend, garnering the highest bid among the nearly 1,000 props, costumes and sets from classic TV shows offered up from a collection amassed by one man over more than three decades.Heritage Auctions said that the items sold during its three-day event that wrapped up Sunday in Dallas brought in over $5 million. James Comisar has said that after his dream of creating a museum to house his collection failed to come together, it was time for the pieces to go to fans to enjoy.“The auction’s success confirmed what I have always known: that television characters are cherished members of our extended family and that their stories and our own are inseparable,” Comisar said in a news release from the auction house.The Batman and Robin costumes worn by Adam West and Burt Ward in the 1960s television series went for $615,000, while the set where Johnny Carson hosted guests on “The Tonight Show” went for $275,000, Heritage Auctions said.The set from “All in the Family” — which included Archie and Edith Bunker's living and dining rooms and stairwell — sold for $125,000, and the auction house said the same buyer also made the winning bid of $250,000 for the chairs used by the TV couple in the show's ninth season.The couple's original two chairs from the show reside in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Comisar said that those thrift shop chairs were given to the museum when it was thought that the show would end after its eighth season, but when it continued for a ninth, replicas were made at great cost. Those replicas — which were the chairs offered at auction — were then used in the show's last season and in its continuation, “Archie Bunker's Place.”
The bar from the television series “Cheers” sold for $675,000 at auction over the weekend, garnering the highest bid among the nearly 1,000 props, costumes and sets from classic TV shows offered up from a collection amassed by one man over more than three decades.
Heritage Auctions said that the items sold during its three-day event that wrapped up Sunday in Dallas brought in over $5 million. James Comisar has said that after his dream of creating a museum to house his collection failed to come together, it was time for the pieces to go to fans to enjoy.
“The auction’s success confirmed what I have always known: that television characters are cherished members of our extended family and that their stories and our own are inseparable,” Comisar said in a news release from the auction house.
Tony Gutierrez
The bar used on the set of the television series "Cheers" and some costumes worn by actors on the sitcom are displayed, April 27, 2023, in Irving, Texas.The Batman and Robin costumes worn by Adam West and Burt Ward in the 1960s television series went for $615,000, while the set where Johnny Carson hosted guests on “The Tonight Show” went for $275,000, Heritage Auctions said.
The set from “All in the Family” — which included Archie and Edith Bunker's living and dining rooms and stairwell — sold for $125,000, and the auction house said the same buyer also made the winning bid of $250,000 for the chairs used by the TV couple in the show's ninth season.
The couple's original two chairs from the show reside in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Comisar said that those thrift shop chairs were given to the museum when it was thought that the show would end after its eighth season, but when it continued for a ninth, replicas were made at great cost. Those replicas — which were the chairs offered at auction — were then used in the show's last season and in its continuation, “Archie Bunker's Place.”
English (US)