Top 10 Most Expensive Auction Items

Auction house Sotheby's announced Sept. 9 that it will sell a rare John James Audubon tome, Birds of America, and expect it to fetch between $6.2 million and $9.2 million — making it the world's most expensive book. Only 119 copies of the bird book — most of which exist in museums and libraries — remain. Here's a look at some other pricey auction items

Going Once, Going Twice ...

Most Expensive Antiquity

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Sotheby's / AP

Item: Roman-era statue, Artemis and the Stag
Winning Bid: $28.6 million
Sold: 2007

When construction workers first unearthed this 2,000-year-old bronze sculpture in Rome in the 1920s, they never could have guessed it would fetch the highest price for any relic — indeed, for any sculpture, period — ever sold at auction. "I'd say it's probably the best antiquity I've sold in my 37 years at Sotheby's," a director at the famous auction house said of the 36-inch statue of the Goddess of the Hunt. And to think, some curators predicted it would only sell for $7 million.

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