The Wall Street Journal reports the English auction house Bonhams will offer a
1965 Ferrari 330GT 2+2 that once belonged to the late Beatles singer and
songwriter John Lennon at its auction at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in
Chichester, England, on July 12.

According to the sales catalog, the Ferrari was the first car Lennon bought after
passing his driving test in February, 1965. As the story goes, news that Lennon
had passed the especially demanding English motor-vehicle test made headlines.

SCHAUMBERG, Ill. (AP) – A rare century-old U.S. nickel that was once mistakenly declared a fake has sold at auction for more than $3.1 million.

The 1913 Liberty Head nickel is one of only five known to exist. But it’s the coin’s
back story that adds to its cachet: It was surreptitiously and illegally cast, discovered
in a car wreck that killed its owner, declared a fake, forgotten in a closet for
decades then declared the real deal.

It was offered for sale by four Virginia siblings at a rare coin and currency auction in
the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg on Thursday, and sold for well over the expected 
$2.5 million.

The winning bidders were two men from Lexington, Ky., and Panama City, Fla., who 
bought the coin in partnership.

The Beach Boys today

LONDON (AP) — A cache of apparently forgotten material dubbed "the
lost archive" of the Beach Boys, one of America’s greatest and most
commercially successful bands, is being put up for auction.

The collection of thousands of documents included what seems to be
the band’s first royalty check, for $990, dozens of signed contracts,
and handwritten and copied scores to "Good Vibrations", "California
Girls" and many other hits from their heyday in the 1960s.

A group of investors is seeking to sell the entire collection as one unit
with the expectation that it will bring several million dollars.

"We thought it would be a crime to break it up," says Ted Owen, who
heads the Fame Bureau, the London-based firm handling the sealed-
bid auction which ends on May 15.

NEW YORK (AP) – A tiny hymnal from 1640 believed to be the first book ever
printed in what is now the United States is going up for auction, and it could sell for
as much as $30 million.

Only 11 copies of the Bay Psalm Book survive in varying degrees of completeness. Members of Boston’s Old South Church have authorized the sale of one of its two
copies at Sotheby’s Nov. 26.

"It’s a spectacular book, arguably one of the most important books in this nation’s 
history," said the Rev. Nancy Taylor, senior minister and CEO of the church, which 
was established in 1669. Samuel Adams was a member and Benjamin Franklin was baptized there.

At one time, the church owned five copies of the 6-by-5-inch hymnal. One is now at
the Library of Congress, another at Yale University and a third at Brown University.

Taylor says the church voted to sell one of its two remaining copies—both of which
are in "excellent condition" — to increase its grants, ministries and "strengthen our
voice in general as a progressive Christian church."

The book was published in Cambridge, Mass., by the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It came just 20 years after the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth.

 
James T. Kirk (William Shatner) with his phaser rifle

A rare phaser rifle used by William Shatner in the second pilot made for 
the original Star Trek series sold recently for $231,000 at an auction
conducted by Julien’s. It is the second-highest paid at auction for a prop
from the 1960s edition of Star Trek, surpassed only by the $304,750 a
collector laid out for the captain’s chair in 2008. In 2006, a miniature
special effects model of the enterprise from Star Trek: The Next
Generation sold for $576,000. 

The phaser prop is made of wood with an aluminum barrel and is painted
with a metallic blue-green paint. The rifle was never appeared in another
episode, though it was seen in publicity photos of Shatner as Kirk and on
an early lunchbox (below).