This week, highlights from Jim Irsay’s famed collection of film, music and sports memorabilia and Americana go on view at Christie’s Los Angeles ahead of their auction in March.
It’s a 10-minute drive from the Beverly Hills Hotel where the billionaire owner of the Indianapolis Colts died last May at age 65 from an apparent cardiac arrest. Irsay took the HVAC fortune and Colts franchise that he inherited from his father and acquired hundreds of items representing historic moments and iconic figures in American pop culture, from Jack Kerouac to Kurt Cobain to Jackie Robinson.
“Jim Irsay had a passion for all things that define the American experience,” said musical instrument specialist Kerry Keane, who is consulting on the sale. These range from Ringo Starr’s logo drum head from The Beatles’ historic debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, estimated at $1 million, to Sly Stallone’s handwritten script notebook from Rocky. Irsay bought it just five years ago at Julien’s for $16,000; Christie’s has estimated it this time around at $200,000.
Among the most prominent pieces of film history on sale is Wilson, the anthropomorphized volleyball that keeps Tom Hanks company in Ron Howard’s Castaway (estimated to go for between $60,000 and $80,000).
The memorabilia market has exploded in the past 5 to 10 years, said independent appraiser Simeon Lipman, in part because there are new auction firms working directly with prop houses. The market reached a new high in 2024 when Heritage Auctions sold a pair of Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz for $32.5 million, though those had added lore after being stolen in 2005 and recovered more than a decade later. As with any market, more money means more scammers, and fakes abound — this past fall Sotheby’s cancelled two memorabilia auctions over authenticity concerns.
Altogether Christie’s is offering some 350 items from Irsay’s collection, about 200 of which are guitars. “What could be more American than guitars?” asked Keane. The selection for sale is still being finalized, but the current aggregate estimate is about $30 million.
Ringo Starr’s drum kit for the Ed Sullivan Show.
Courtesy Christie’s
In 2022, Guitar.com magazine declared Irsay’s guitar collection “the greatest on earth.” A player himself, he was amassing an encyclopedic selection that represented almost 200 years of American guitar-making, said Keane. Unusually, he straddled two different categories of guitar collectors: those who focus on rare instruments, and those who buy performance-related ones. Irsay owned guitars played by the likes of Prince, David Gilmour, John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Johnny Cash, and Janis Joplin. A highlight is Jerry Garcia’s longest-played guitar, dubbed “Tiger,” custom made for him by Luthier Doug Irwin, estimated at $1 million. Notably, Garcia played it for his last performance with the Grateful Dead at Chicago’s Soldier Field on July 9, 1995, one month before he died. “It’s like Mozart’s piano,” said Lipman.
Irsay didn’t limit himself to just guitars; there is also a Miles Davis trumpet, an Elton John piano, a John Coltrane sax, and Paul McCartney’s handwritten lyrics for “Hey Jude,” estimated at $600,000. Lipman called out the rare poster advertising the Winter Party concert on February 3, 1959, that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were on their way to perform when their plane crashed, estimated at $300,000. The event was immortalized in Don Maclean’s song “American Pie” as “the day the music died.”
Irsay’s passion for collecting American pop culture extended to literature and sports, though interestingly not football. There’s Secretariat’s saddle from the famed horse’s Triple Crown win in 1973, from the collection of the winning jockey, Ron Turcotte, estimated at $1.5 million, and a Robinson game-used 1953 bat, estimated at $250,000. Those who love historic books and manuscripts will be excited by Kerouac’s 120-foot-long stream-of-consciousness typescript scroll of On The Road, estimated at $2.5 million, that he churned out while high on amphetamines.
Jack Kerouac’s original typescript roll for On the Road.
Courtesy Christie’s
Irsay toured his collection through 10 U.S. cities between 2021 and 2024, but he never expressed interest in selling, even “if someone offered me a billion dollars,” he told Bloomberg News in 2022. At that point, in fact, he was still actively buying. He paid $4.6 million at Julien’s for the 1966 Fender Mustang that Cobain played in the 1991 video for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” estimated by Christie’s at $2.5 million. He also paid $6.2 million at Heritage Auctions for Muhammad Ali’s championship belt from the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” fight against George Foreman. Ali’s belt was removed from Christie’s sale listing, perhaps an indication that there might be some uncertainty surrounding authenticity. Another item conspicuously missing from the sale listing is the electric guitar that Bob Dylan supposedly played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, as depicted in the film A Complete Unknown. Irsay bought it at Christie’s in 2013 for just under $1 million. The guitar had come to auction after the seller settled a legal dispute with Dylan, who claimed it wasn’t the guitar he played in Newport.
“This stuff touched history. That’s where [Irsay] had a keen eye,” said Lipman. “It’s remarkable for this much great material to come onto the market at one time.”
