A Tale of Two Auctions, or, The $500,000 Bottle of Beer.

Auction Number One can be found here. It sold for $304 dollars. The buyer then turned around, did more research, wrote a nearly dissertation-length description of the item and its historical significance, and offered it up in Autcion Number Two, with no reserve. The final sale price: a cool half-million.

What is this improbably pricy item? An old bottle of beer. But not just any old bottle of beer. To begin with, it's reportedly the world's oldest known intact, sealed bottle of beer. Still not impressed? How 'bout the fact that it's part of a special, freeze-resistant batch of beer that was brewed to order for a mid-19th century arctic expedition, and that its provenance and history are exhaustively detailed in a hand-written, 100-year-old note attached to the bottle? (Note: In the absence of any contrary revelations, I am presuming the authenticity of the bottle, because I presume that anyone willing to buy or sell an object for $500,000 is going to have it examined in minute detail by well-qualified experts.)

Certain web-commentators have mocked the first seller for not getting the full value of his find. But I'll speak up in his defense. I don't know how he acquired it, but it seems likely he got it cheap. Possibly he inherited it (in which case one can't help but wish that the heirs of Mr. Bolster, who wrote the charmingly erudite note that accompanies the bottle, had profited more from their ancestor's good taste.) Or perhaps he picked it up cheap at an auction, fleamarket, or estate sale where no one else recognized its value, in which case the heirs who let it slip through their fingers have only themselves to blame!. But in any case, if the first seller hadn't realized that the bottle had some historical significance, for all we know it might have ended up in a dumpster. He knew it was worth something, even if he didn't know exactly what it was worth. And without that recognition, a unique artifact might have been entirely lost.

On the other hand, if he was selling it on commission for somebody else, he has some 'splainin' to do.