New York: A blue Mets jacket that once belonged to Bernard L Madoff was sold for $14,500 at a government auction at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday, while a ring buoy from his yacht went for $7,500.
While the winning bids for those and other bits of flotsam from the convicted swindler's life were far higher than the items' estimated values ($500 to $700 for the jacket and $140 to $160 for the buoy), the bids for several Rolex watches were considerably below the listed estimates.
Pieces of jewelry that had belonged to Madoff's wife, Ruth, however, sold for many times the values printed in the catalog for the auction, which was organized by the US Marshals Service after it seized the items from the Madoffs' homes in Manhattan, Palm Beach and Montauk, NY
Lot No 201, a pair of Art Deco onyx and diamond earrings from Cartier that had a price range of $6,500 to $9,800, sold for $70,000. A bidder paid the same price for Lot 218: earrings of gold, silver and diamonds that had a maximum estimate of $21,400. The sale began about 2 p.m., with about a minute of spirited bidding for a gold charm bracelet — with a whale, a lighthouse and a shell — that belonged to Ruth Madoff. The offers quickly shot over the maximum listed value of $1,000. It sold for $3,500.
Lester Miller, 77, a businessman from St. Louis, bought that bracelet and 19 or so others, spending about $100,000. He said he would divide them among his daughters and granddaughters on a cruise to Mexico next weekend.
He said that he had never met Madoff but knew several people in Palm Beach who had lost money in his bogus investments. He added that he was pleased to help those people. "I think it's a nice thing," Miller said. "The more you can bid, the better off you are."
Asked what he would tell his granddaughters when he gave them the bracelets, he said, "If it's too good to be true, it's not right."
At the peak of bidding, about 500 people vied for 189 lots, joining more than 1,000 others online. Many of them waited for several hours while the auctioneers, Gaston & Sheehan of Austin, Texas, first sold goods that had been seized in unrelated cases.
The proceeds were to go to the fund set up to pay restitution to those Madoff had swindled. A spokesman for the Marshals Service, Roland Ubaldo, said about $1 million was raised.
None of the bidders in the ballroom seemed to have a Madoff connection, although many seemed to know somebody who knew somebody — like Mary Parker, a retired literature professor, whose Upper East Side apartment building was home to some of the victims.
''At first, I said I didn't want anything those people owned; it goes against my grain," Parker said. "But if it helps out the victims, it's OK"
She had planned to bid on a ring, but was disappointed to discover that Ruth Madoff's ring size is 7. Hers is 5.
A 1945 Rolex watch with a black dial that was sent to a returning prisoner of war had been expected to sell for as much as $87,000. The winning bid was $55,000. While the auctioneers sold some watches for less than their estimates, they pulled back a 1935 Rolex with an alligator strap, valued up to $54,000, after the bids failed to rise above $35,000.
Two bankruptcy lawyers, Tally Wiener and Steve Bereit, bought a tree stump that had been turned into an end table for $500. They said they planned to put it in their office.
The publicist Chuck Jones bought a pair of white plastic coolers for $250, a Rado watch with diamonds for $1,000 and a gold chain for another $1,000.
Jones, who served two years in prison after two convictions of burglarising the apartment of Marla Maples, said of the coolers, "It will be what you call a novelty, but that's not why I bought them.
''I'll wait till they cut his hair and he sells it, and I'll put a lock in there."
Alexander Melamedov, 28, a real estate consultant, left the ballroom carrying a blue-and-white striped umbrella with the name of one of Madoff's firms and plastic bags containing two purses, an old cigar box, a tie tack and a 1945 Rolex. He said that he and two friends spent a total of $16,000 and that he planned to sell most of the things on eBay and give the umbrella to a friend whose family had lost money to Madoff.
''I'm going to send a letter to him in jail," with a photo of the umbrella, Melamedov said.
When the Mets jacket was sold, the crowd applauded. Alan Richardson, one of the losing bidders, said, "It was too small for me."
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