Diane Keaton’s nail clippers for $960: what’s behind the new boom in celebrity estate auctions?

With beloved stars’ personal items increasingly up for grabs after they die, a new generation of fans are bidding on everything from bowler hats to dog bowls

F rom Diane Keaton’s bowler hats and polka dot scarfs, to Gene Hackman’s used paint brushes, to Terence Stamp’s love letters from Jean Shrimpton and even Matthew Perry’s black leather wallet (his credit cards and AAA membership card still inside), fans are being offered – at a price – increasingly personal items from the estates of dead celebrities.

The growing trend for auctions of deceased famous people’s personal items – which has boomed ever since the hugely popular Marilyn Monroe estate sale in 1999 – has even attracted its own portmanteau: “deleb” as in dead celebrity.

The first of no fewer than four auctions of Keaton’s professional and personal items went on sale at Bonhams in New York earlier this week with her original Annie Hall script selling for $394,000, way more than its $2,000 estimate.

Several of her trademark hats sold for thousands of dollars, including a black felt Neogranadine (modern day Colombia) cup hat that she wore in an Instagram video teaching fans how hats can be used to enhance their best features. It sold for $5,888, including buyer’s premium, many multiples of its $200-300 estimate. A box of six of her trademark brown polka dot scarfs – that was also estimated to sell for $200-300 – sold for $6,144. A “curated box” of safety pins and nail clippers went for $960. The first Keaton auction raised $1.2m, with 47 of the 50 lots selling for more than their estimate.

In total, Bonhams, in collaboration with celebrity specialist The Fine Art Group, will sell 787 of Keaton’s items. They range from original collages by Keaton and a Gucci sequin suit and beret worn to the Lacma charity gala in 2021, to personal and prosaic items including a “job lot” of her trademark black turtlenecks, a collection of kitchen chopping boards and dog food bowls.

Shane David Hall, director of Fine Art Group’s high-profile client division, says fans are increasingly keen to own celebrities’ personal items and not just items related to their professional lives like film scripts or art collections.

“Over the past 20 years the personal legacy market has really exploded,” he says. “People really feel a personal connection to celebrities and how they have influenced their own lives, and there is a real desire to own something of theirs to keep and deepen that connection.”