These 19 Pieces Of Celebrity Memorabilia Sold At Auction Taught Me The Real Meaning Of The Term "Stan"

    Used tissues, rotten teeth, and a used jockstrap.

    Benjamin Dzialdowski
    by Benjamin Dzialdowski

    BuzzFeed Staff

    There are certain fans that are keen to get their hands on anything and everything that their fave celeb has ever owned, touched, or produced.

    NBC

    When you mix this with people that have the means to pay absurd amounts for things, you get some absolutely wild memorabilia auctions.

    Here are 19 of the wildest and most expensive bits of celeb memorabilia ever sold at auction!

    1. Justin Timberlake's french toast.

    Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images, Ania Todica / Getty Images/500px

    Sold for: $1,025

    In the year 2000, one avid NSYNC fan got the opportunity of a lifetime. When JT didn't eat his breakfast during an interview at radio station Z-100, the DJ put the neglected toast on eBay and one student won a bidding war to get it. Kathy Summers, 19, said, "I'll probably freeze-dry it, then seal it…then put it on my dresser".

    2. Scarlett Johansson's used tissue.

    NBCUniversal / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $5,300

    The actor appeared on Tonight back in 2008 and at one point required a tissue to blow her nose. After leaving behind some lipstick and, you know, nose stuff, she sealed the bag and signed it. ScarJo claimed that Samuel L Jackson had given her the cold, thus the tissue was more valuable. She'd go on to put it on eBay and donate the proceeds to charity! Bless you, Scarlett.

    3. John Oliver bought Russell Crowe's jockstrap.

    United International Pictures, Lloyd Bishop / HBO

    Sold for: $8,540

    Yup, you read that correctly. At Russell Crowe's 'Art of Divorce' auction (which netted $3.7M) John Oliver was the lucky winning bidder of the jockstrap Crowe wore for Gladiator. On the purchase, Oliver said, "[it is] a big price to pay just to find out what Russell Crowe’s balls smelled like in 2005." John planned to donate it to a struggling video store in Alaska.

    4. A wig worn by pop artist Andy Warhol.

    Ramin Talaie/Corbis / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $10,800

    In 2006, one of the iconic silver wigs belonging to the pop artist Andy Warhol also outdid its pre-auction estimate of $4-6,000. The artist began wearing wigs to cover up baldness, but they would become a statement of Warhol's fashion — one that fans will apparently pay wild sums of money for.

    5. Lady Gaga's broken acrylic nail.

    Jamie Mccarthy / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $12,000

    That's a LOT to pay for a pinky nail! On the Dublin stop of her Born This Way tour, Lady Gaga's black and gold acrylic nail – painted for her by her manicurist Aya Fukuda — was broken off. A stagehand picked it up afterward, thinking it was a guitar pick, and it ended up fetching $12,000!

    6. Joan Rivers's dog bowl.

    Jason Laveris / FilmMagic / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $14,000

    A Tiffany dog bowl owned by Spike (Joan Rivers's terrier) was bought by an anonymous bidder for almost 30 times the estimate in 2016. Joan was a canine lover, and at the same auction were three of her Louis XV-style children’s armchairs that were specifically for her dogs to sit on.

    7. Queen Victoria's underwear.

    David Cheskin/PA Images / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $14,500

    One private English collector once coughed up enough money to become the owner of a pair of Queen Victoria's cotton knickers. The knickers had a 45-inch (114cm) waist, which was used to date the knickers to around the late 1890s. 

    8. David Bowie's hair.

    Armando Gallo / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $18,000+

    This was sold by a wig-maker who kept a lock of Bowie's hair to use for making wax figures of him. A clipping of his hair (circa "Let's Dance") was sold for big bucks at an auction in Beverly Hills.

    9. William Shatner's kidney stone.

    Santiago Felipe / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $25,000

    The Star Trek star decided to sell his removed kidney stone back in 2006 and donated all the money to a housing charity. On the peculiar sale, he said: "this takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?"

    10. John Lennon's tooth.

    Keystone / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $31,000

    I guess the cost of living crisis has affected the tooth fairy too. Dorothy "Dot" Jarlett had been in possession of the famed singer's tooth from when she worked as a housekeeper for John in Surrey. He'd had his molar removed and gave it to her as a souvenir. She later put it up for sale and the winning bid was by a Canadian dentist, which tracks. I guess money can't buy you love, but it can buy you John Lennon's rotten tooth!

    11. Justin Bieber's hair.

    Kevin Winter / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $40,668

    Now for more famous hair! Once upon a time, a 17-year-old Justin Bieber gave his recently cut locks to Ellen DeGeneres. After she put them on eBay, the bids rose to $10,000 in the first hour, eventually reaching over four times that!

    12. X-Rays of Marilyn Monroe's chest.

    L. J. Willinger / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $45,000

    Marilyn Monroe once went to the hospital for a chest X-Ray in 1954, and 56 years later those X-Rays were sold for A LOT of money! The images were estimated to sell for $3,000, so the bidder was clearly quite determined to get their hands on them!

    13. Kim Kardashian once bought Michael Jackson's jacket.

    Johannes Eisele / AFP / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $65,000

    Kim Kardashian bought this for North for Christmas. I'm not sure if a six-year-old's idea of a perfect Christmas present is a £65K velvet jacket worn by Michael Jackson, but who am I to judge? It was reported that the jacket had been tailored so it would fit North and could be adjusted as she grew. The price was over double the amount that the custom jacket was expected to sell for.

    14. And also his hat.

    Kim Kardashian / Via Instagram

    That's right! Alongside the jacket, Kim also added the "Smooth Criminal" hat to North's collection.

    15. A chunk of Elvis Presley’s hair.

    Michael Ochs Archives / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $72,000

    Topping the famous hair on this list is Elvis. One barber with some strong foresight stowed away some locks belonging to the famous singer when cutting his hair once. Naturally, Elvis fans drove the price up to a massive amount!

    16. Princess Diana's John Travolta dress.

    Handout/Pete Souza/The White House / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $290,500

    This famous dress was worn by Diana when she danced with John in The White House to the music of "Saturday Night Fever" back in 1985. It was acquired by an anonymous buyer as a "surprise for his wife" — that is one expensive surprise! Who knows if it went down well because it was sold again in 2019 for $320,000. This time it was snapped up by the Historic Royal Palaces after it failed to sell at auction.

    17. Olivia Newton-John's outfit from Grease.

    Paramount Pictures

    Sold for: $405,700

    This one buyer clearly got the one that they wanted, and they paid almost double the expected price for it! The famous black trousers and leather jacket were sold at an auction in Beverly Hills to an anonymous buyer. Whomever it was, there's not a huge chance they'd ever get to wear them as the trousers were so tight Olivia had to be sewn into them. They were actually auctioned off with a broken zipper!

    18. Darth Vader's original mask.

    20th Century Fox

    Sold for: $885,000

    The mask that was worn when Darth Vader revealed he was (spoiler) Luke's father does make for an impressive thing to have on the mantlepiece, and one mystery fan forked out almost 3/4 of a million pounds for it! The mask, which is made of fiberglass and foam, was expected to fetch around $442,000, but a bidding war took over and escalated that price to more than double the anticipated amount!

    19. Michael Jordan's signed sneakers.

    Heritage Images / Heritage Images via Getty Images, Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE / Via Getty Images

    Sold for: $1.5M

    The basketball superstar wore his Nike Air Ships in the regular season of his rookie year (1984). The signed shoes were originally gifted to a Denver Nuggets ball boy, Tommie Tim III Lewis — that's one hell of a gift. They later reached an eye-watering amount at auction!

    Did any of these surprise you? Which of these items would you most (or least) like to own? Let us know in the comments below!