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L . A . AUC TIO N S
In Like Flynt
THE LATE PORN KING LARRY FLYNT WASN’T EXACTLY FAMOUS FOR HIS GOOD TASTE. STILL, HIS OLD GOLD-PLATED TCHOTCHKES
JUST FETCHED A FORTUNE AT AN ONLINE AUCTION BY JOEL STEIN
Class with a Capital K COLLECTORS SNAPPED UP A SLEW OF FLYNT’S OLD BRIC-A-BRAC AT PRICES FAR EXCEEDING WHAT ABELL AUCTION COMPANY PREDICTED, PROVING ONCE AGAIN THAT THERE’S NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE
1 4 L A M AG . C O M
TIFFANY- STYLE TABLE LAMP
JADE CABBAGE
DECO TABLE LAMP
Estimated price: $800 to $1,200. O Sold for $2,200.
Estimated price: $600 to $800. O Sold for $1,750.
Estimated price: $1,500 to $2,000. O Sold for $2,000.
P H O T O G R A P H BY DA N T U F F S
F LY N T: G E T T Y I M AG E S
“Yeah, he made porno, but porno is free on the internet now,” says Schireson. “That’s no big deal. I don’t think people are like, ‘Ew, gross, it was Larry’s.’ ” In fact, Schireson initially guessed Flynt’s bric-a-brac could get close to the 20 percent celebrity markup he
AU C T I O N I T E M S : CO U R T E SY A B E L L AU C T I O N CO M PA N Y
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at the Bellagio. It’s all oversized and Versailles-inspired. And it’s almost is that it worked. Not the all replicas. aesthetics. No, they don’t I wonder who will possibly buy work at all. any of this. Todd Schireson, the vice But Larry Flynt’s fight to be taken president of Abell, is not worried. seriously—that totally worked. “Is there a value added because it’s When the porn titan died last his?” he asks, then answers his February, his New York Times obit own question. “I think called him a “freea lot of people are fans.” speech hero.” And now, This was not always in an even greater sign “People true. If you went over to of respectability, the aren’t like, someone’s house 25 years Hustler founder’s furago and the host said, niture was peddled off ‘Ew, gross, “Guess who owned that at an online auction it was couch you’re sitting on? in December by Abell Larry’s.’ ” Larry Flynt!” you’d run Auction Company, straight to a dry cleaner. the 107-year-old house Flynt, after all, was a guy that once sold the who, when accused of objectifying items of Hollywood royalty like women like sides of beef, put an image Cecil B. De Mille, Jack Warner, and of a naked woman being fed into a Barbara Stanwyck. meat grinder on Hustler’s cover. I am shocked at everything I see But Flynt’s image started being during my presale peek in November rehabilitated in 1996, when Miloš at the Flyntorabilia stored in the aucForman made The People vs. Larry tion house’s 100,000-square-foot Flynt, and suddenly the man in a warehouse. It isn’t the 1980s Patrick golden wheelchair became a First Nagel cocaine-inspired sex-dungeon Amendment icon. Since then, decor I idiotically expected. Hustler went from a brown paperFlynt was born to a sharecropcovered magazine to a licensed brand per in rural Kentucky. He wanted name. There’s a Hustler Casino and respectability. So he went full dictanearly 60 Hustler Hollywood stores. tor chic. The stuff here is VIP room H E M O S T ridiculous part