Fallen financier Bernard Madoff and his wife's belongings fetched as much as 20 times their estimated value at auction.
Alan Richardson, a Florida dealer, almost got Madoff's blue satin New York Mets baseball jacket with his surname stitched on the back, valued at up to $720. The bidder lost - just shy of the $14,500 final price at Saturday's auction.
Two pairs of Ruth Madoff's diamond dangle earrings sold for $70,000 each, against a pre-sale estimate of no more than $9,800 and $21,400. But the most highly prized item in the sale, Bernard Madoff's Rolex watch, fetched only $65,000, paid by an unknown buyer. The watch was valued between $75,000 and $85,000.
The auction, in the main ballroom of a Manhattan hotel, was organized by the U.S. Marshals Service, which seized the couple's properties - a penthouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side and houses in Montauk, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida.
Inside the homes were some of the items on the block Saturday, ordered forfeited as part of Madoff's sentencing after he pleaded guilty in a multibillion-dollar fraud that burned thousands of investors. Proceeds from the auction will be divided among his victims.
