MILLION-DOLLAR Celebrity Finds! - History's Greatest Picks (S1)

If celebrity sells, then royalty sells big time. Like Mary Antoinette's diamond bracelet that sold for a staggering $8.2 million in 2021. Or her pearl pendant that sold for an even more staggering $36.2 million in 2018. Even a crown made of 100% plastic can be worth a small fortune if it once sat on the right person's head. This story takes place in 1997. There's a guy named Baron Claiborne. He's a photographer. He goes to this costume novelty shop that had been in New York City and Manhattan for nearly a century called Gordon's. So Baron starts rummaging through stuff for this photo shoot he has. He's rummaging through magic tricks and goofy costumes and costume jewelry and stupid hats. He stumbles on this cheap plastic crown. He's like, you know what? Maybe this crown could work for this photo shoot. So he buys two crowns. One's a smaller size and one's a bigger size. He pays 12 bucks and he's out the door. And he's got this great cover assignment for a magazine called Rap Pages, which is a big hip-hop magazine. The man they're featuring, Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, notorious B.I.G., like one of the most legendary rappers of all time, just blowing up on the East Coast. So Claiborne, he's got this idea now with these crowns. He's going to crown Biggie Smalls the king of hip-hop. And he starts shooting him with this crown. Just a few snapshots later and a cheap plastic crown becomes a hip-hop icon. Worn by one of rap's greatest, immortalized in one of the most famous pop culture portraits ever taken. At the time, the East Coast, West Coast rift was a real thing. Biggie, East Coast, then you got his rival Tupac Shakur, West Coast. Back and forth through the lyrics, who's the best. They're at war with each other. Tupac Shakur unfortunately gets shot down in Las Vegas and they assume that Biggie Smalls is involved. And then three days after the King of New York photo shoot, Biggie himself is gunned down in a drive-by. He had only produced two albums at this time. He wasn't even 30 years old. But before he left, he left that iconic image. The photo, because of his death, becomes iconic. You saw that photo everywhere. You saw that photo in magazines, on murals, on the sides of buildings. It's not just the crown. It's the choice of the deep red backdrop, the pose, the expression on his face. Put it all together, and this photo makes him regal. He's the King of New York. He's the King of hip-hop. You know, photography is a funny thing, and I don't think there's any way Baron Claiborne knew quite what he was creating. Maybe he had an inkling though, because he decided to hold on to that crown. So what he does right after is he asks Biggie to sign it. So not only does he sign it, next to his signature he writes K-O-N-Y, King of New York. For years he kept it, and a piece of the pointy top of the crown ends up cracking off. But it's still around, and you can see that's the one that Biggie wore. It's plastic. It's made to be thrown away. It's like a one-use piece. But what makes it iconic is the head that it stood upon, and that photo that it produced for the cover of that magazine. When Claiborne decides to sell the crown, its value is estimated between $200,000 and $300,000. But when the hammer finally drops, what started as a plastic $6 keepsake sells for nearly $600,000. So it's 1959, huge snowstorm, super cold, freezing day. Maintenance worker goes outside just to check things, and he sees underneath the telephone pole that there's a poster lying face down. Picks it up, brushes it off. It's 14 by 22 inch, pretty standard. It's got a glob of glue on the back where it had been posted up. Turns it over. It's what they call a tour blank poster. Traveling acts would have them. They would be pre-printed with everything but the location and the date. It says Winter Dance Tour, but in red grease pencil, the rest is filled in. Moorhead Armory, February 3rd, two shows, 730 and 930. And then below that is the lineup. It's got Ritchie Valens. It's got the Big Bopper. It's got Dion and the Belmonts. And the headliner for this show is this up-and-comer, Buddy Holly. Buddy Holly is on the cusp of superstardom. Songs like Peggy Sue, That'll Be the Day. The dude was rocking out. He was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. The guy who finds it takes the poster home and it just sits there gathering dust for decades. So why hang on to it? What makes this concert poster so different from the rest? The Winter Dance Party kicks off two weeks earlier and it's an ambitious tour. 24 cities, two gigs a night. But here's the thing. It's the dead of winter in the Midwest and they're zigzagging through the snow just freezing their butts off. It is hell. It's not like they're traveling in comfort. They're traveling via bus in 1959. In the first 11 days of this tour, five buses break down and they have to get them replaced. A couple of weeks in, Buddy Holly has had enough. So Buddy Holly says, I'm going to book this small plane, this four-seater, to get from Iowa to Minnesota. He's had enough with buses. He didn't have time to be traveling another 365 miles freezing his ass off. Buddy Holly, the big bopper, Richie Valance, hop on board. Famously, one member of the band decides the plane is not for him. In the early hours of February 3rd, 1959, the plane takes off but then immediately crashes into a frozen cornfield. Everyone dies. This is a tragedy that has been immortalized in many different ways, but perhaps done more famously than in Don McLean's song, American Pie. And this poster found on the snowy sidewalk is the only surviving copy of the concert poster for the day the music died. When the gentleman who found the poster passes on, his son starts clearing out the family home piece by piece. And that's when he uncovers the poster his dad kept for all of those years. It's pristine. It hasn't been touched for decades. It is in the best condition you can ever find a concert poster. It's going to be unbelievably valuable. In 2004, he sells it to a collector for $175,000. This is a holy grail for any poster collector. In 2022, the collector brings the poster back to market. The numbers rise at a staggering pace. It's $150,000 asking for $160,000 and we have it in $170,000. Now go $180,000. Go $300,000. $360,000. The total amount paid is $447,000, which means a poster that was found on the street in snowy Minnesota is now the most expensive concert poster ever sold at auction.