Thursday, June 16, 2016

Joan Anderson letter doesn't sell at Christie's auction: UPDATED 6-26-16

Regular readers of The Daily Beat need no introduction to the famous Joan Anderson letter, the once-thought-lost-but-recently-found letter that Neal Cassady wrote to Jack Kerouac and Jack called the greatest piece of writing he ever saw. If you need background, here's a good piece on Beatdom to bring you up to speed: http://www.beatdom.com/reconsidering-the-importance-of-the-joan-anderson-letter/.

Anyway, the letter went up for auction at Christie's today, and according to Neal's daughter, Jami, on Facebook:
The Joan Anderson Letter.....did not get ONE BID!!!! IT DID NOT SELL AT Christie's this morning....
I don't know why it didn't sell or what happens next. If I learn anything I'll update you.

******UPDATE*****

It seems that there were bids made at the auction, but they didn't meet a pre-established minimum of $400,000. According to Brian Hassett on Facebook:
It opened at $240,000, then went $260,000, then $280,000, then $300,000, then $320,000, then $350,000, then $380,000....
I'm not sure of next steps but will update this post as I find out anything.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Gerald Nicosia with Jami Cassady and husband Randy Ratto viewing Neal Cassady's Joan Anderson Letter at the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco on June
3, 2016. Photo by Rowland Weinstein.

(c) 2016 Rowland Weinstein

2 comments:

slackercruster said...

Surprisingly a lot of the people I talk with never heard of beatniks or the beat generation. Sounds like they got some decent bids but the sellers just had too high hopes.

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