Frank Sinatra’s golden toilets fetch thousands at auction
Jan 28, 2020, 6:02 AM
(CNN) — The opportunity to sit on the same toilet as Frank Sinatra doesn’t come around often.
That’s why eager fans paid thousands to snag his gold-seated commodes at auction.
Furnishings from his executive suite at the former Golden Nugget Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, were auctioned off Sunday by SS Auction, Inc.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn selected décor from all over the world to furnish the gigantic suite, which totaled over 6,000 square feet, for Sinatra.
Wynn opened the hotel in December 1980, and Sinatra sang there for several years. No one else was allowed to stay there when Sinatra wasn’t in residence, David Berenblit, marketing manager at the auction house, told CNN.
Sinatra’s Italian marble and gold-seated toilets were highly sought after. One sold for $4,250, and his “basic” marble toilet without the gold seat sold for $1,800.
“Typically toilets like those would maybe go for $2,000 online,” Berenblit said.
“There must have been some gravitas attached because they were Frank Sinatra’s because they overperformed.”
Seems like a lot for a toilet?
Those prices were a steal for Sinatra fans wanting a taste of his lavish lifestyle. New marble Sinatra-like toilets would cost around $27,000, he said.
But fancy toilets weren’t the only items bringing in the big bucks.
Sinatra’s baby grand piano sold for $7,000, and his Ferdinand Berthoud clock went for $13,000. The top seller was a signed Enid Yandell fountain that sold for $33,000.
Even on a skinny budget, buyers could walk away with a piece of luxury: A pair of his ottomans sold for $100.
All 197 items that were up for auction did get sold. And even though Sinatra died in 1998, many of his fans still want a part of him in their life some 22 years later.
“There are a lot of people with a fascination into Frank Sinatra,” said Berenblit. “Here was an opportunity to own something that he used, and I would think that is pretty cool for a Sinatra fan.”
The-CNN-Wire
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