When Elizabeth Taylor’s diamond tiara was auctioned off for a sweet $4.22 million, you may not have batted an eyelid.

Nor is it surprising that a rhinestone hair comb and hairclip belonging to Marilyn Monroe racked up over $22,000 each, or that several photographic negatives of Monroe with copyright were snapped up for over $1,000 each.

But it’s certainly eyebrow-raising when a chest and lung X-ray of the then-28-year-old actress fetches $45,000. The X-ray was among the stranger items belonging to Marilyn Monroe’s collection, auctioned by Juliens Auction in Beverly Hills last month. A love letter to the late screen goddess by Joe DiMaggio fetched $78,125, while her lacy brassiere was bought for $20,000. Over the years, international auctions have seen many out-of-the-ordinary items fetch mind-boggling sums.

Animal planet But Monroe is recent history. Skip back a few million years and consider Sue Hendrickson. No, don’t scratch your head wondering which movie she was in. Sue is a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, named after the palaeontologist who discovered it. Sue was the most intact T-Rex skeleton ever to be found.

The institute that discovered and worked on it had to part with its prized possession after being embroiled in a heated legal battle over ownership.

In 1997, at a Sotheby’s auction, the skeleton was bought by Chicago’s Field Museum for $8.4 million.

In 2013, auction house Christie’s, which normally deals in jewellery, art, wine and similar hoity-toity stuff, set up one of its out-of-the-ordinary sale.

Generating furious bids was a complete triceratops skull excavated from a private land in Montana, US, that went for $3,02,445.

At the same auction, an elephant bird’s egg that was unearthed in Madagascar found a buyer at $1,05,885.

It’s not just skeletons tumbling out of auction houses that catch buyers’ fancy.

The ashes of a tabby cat that starred in the starting sequence of long-running British soap opera Coronation Street was auctioned by Dominic Winter Auctioneers for £844 in 2010.

That’s a small sum, but several times the £150 pounds the auction house expected.

Famous and otherwise A Leica MD3 camera was, a couple of years ago, auctioned by the Westlicht gallery for a record $2.18 million. What gives? The rare camera, one of four ever made, belonged to former Life photojournalist David Douglas Duncan who also documented Pablo Picasso’s life.

Fetching an even higher price was a piano, whose claim to fame was that it featured, for may be two minutes, next to Ingrid Bergman in a classic scene from the movie Casablanca . The piano, complete with a wad of chewing gum stuck in a corner, was auctioned by Bonham’s for $3.4 million in 2014. But here is one which should confound valuation experts. Another piano used in the same movie fetched a measly $6,02,500 when it was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2012.

Then there are the auction items marked by notoriety. Late last year, the Peru Government began auctioning off dozens of watches and jewellery (that included diamond cufflinks) of jailed former spy-chief Vladimiro Montesinos. The laundry list of accusations against him includes embezzlement, human rights abuses and corruption. Montesinos served as the head of intelligence and right-hand man under former president Alberto Fujimori, who is also doing prison time. The Peru Government, which raised about $2,30,000 from the first round of auction, is set to use part of the proceeds to combat organised crime.

Now that’s a noble cause. But former Nobel winner for medicine, James Watson (who was part of the trio who discovered the double helix DNA structure) was forced to put his medal up for auction. Courting controversy several times as a result of disparaging remarks, Watson was finally ostracised after making racist observations in 2007.

Auction house Christie’s auctioned off the 23-carat gold medal for $4.76 million last year, with Watson needing the money for various purposes, ranging from diminished income as a result of his being ostracised to philanthropic purposes. This was the first time a living Nobel laureate auctioned a medal. Even more enthralling is that the purchaser, Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov, who part-owns football team Arsenal, bought the medal in order to return it to Watson. The idea of an outstanding scientist having to sell his medal was apparently unacceptable.

Odds and ends What fungus weighs less than 2 kg but is worth $61,250? The world’s largest white truffle. The haute cuisine darling was found in central Italy and was auctioned off by Sotheby’s. What was even more extraordinary is that the seller expected about a million from the sale.

Then there’s UK-based Brian Bennett who built up a shoe collection over 50 years during his career in the footwear industry. He auctioned off about 20 pairs, some of which dated back to the 1900s for £1,100 to an antique dealer.

Across the Atlantic, selling for $2.21 million was a tattered, blood-spattered American flag that was flying in the iconic 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. Dating back even further, four American Revolution flags fetched around $17.4 million.

So, keep an eye out for auction announcements. You may not be willing to drop several hundred thousand dollars on fossilised eggs. But you may be willing to pay up a few thousands for a slice of history. Like those who bought pieces of royal cake from the weddings of Prince Charles and Princess Diana or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, for over $6,000 each. Or wads of used celebrity chewing gum from eBay. If you can brush aside the yuck factor, think how good a conversation starter this can be, if it adorns your drawing room.

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