During a two-day auction in New York, buyers and gawkers alike flocked to view an eclectic collection of Lauren Bacall’s belongings.CreditBenjamin Norman for The New York TimesLee Roy Reams, an actor who appeared withLauren Bacallin the 1970 Broadway musical “Applause,” was on the phone Thursday, exulting at his winning bid, for $2,000, on two deer antlers mounted on a carved wooden head from the auction ofher collectionat Bonhams New York earlier in the week.
“I lusted after them and coveted them for many years,” said Mr. Reams, who played Duane, the hairstylist for Ms. Bacall’s character, and remembered a friendship that progressed from getting Nathan’s hot dogs with her in the limo ride home from the theater, to spaghetti casseroles in her dining room at the Dakota apartments, to Chinese food on her bed. “Now I have them.”
Mr. Reams’s purchase, along with that of three other lots (he tried for a dozen), was one of the more personal in the four sessions held over two days, the afternoon sessions stretching into night.
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Bids flew in over the telephone and from cyberspace from 34 countries, as well as by raising a paddle bearing Ms. Bacall’s likeness in a subterranean room in the auction headquarters on Madison Avenue, warm with artificial light.
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Though it was far from a full house, Patrick Meade, the C.E.O. of Bonhams United States and among several plummy-voiced gentlemen running the block in turns, said that on average, items drew three times their estimate, with many far exceeding that.
“We had a lot of absentee bids,” he said. “Auctioneers love to fill the room. We love the theater of the eye contact. But the world order has changed, and we’ve all been trying to get people to use the online platforms.”
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But the most costly item, at $173,000 (including buyer’s premium), was secured in the hall: “American White Pelican,” an 1836 engraving by John James Audubon. Close behind was a pair of landscapes by Albert Edward York, which at $161,000 sold for more than 80 times their high estimate of $2,000. The biggest bargain was a 20th-century South Asian “burden basket,” for $250.
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In between was an assortment whose eclecticism gave the event the air of an upscale jumble sale: knobby-based wooden candlesticks; memorabilia of Ms. Bacall’s great love, Humphrey Bogart (two silver table pieces presented to him by Spencer Tracy sold for $16,250), and of her two dogs, Blenheim and Sophie; posters from the Democratic National Convention and Los Angeles Music Festival; and a beaded black Armani evening jacket with carved jet buttons that sold for $5,000.
There were also piles of books, many inscribed, on topics from cooking to yachting, along with biographies and novels. “Those were cool,” said Emily Tracey, a young Bacall fan who attended the second day. “And when I saw her piano, that was great.”
Ms. Tracey, a cinema studies student at New York University who found out about the auction on Twitter, sat on her hands during the bidding but coveted the jewelry, like the Schlumberger 18-karat gold, diamond, amethyst and turquoise ring bought for $52,500. Also the 10-odd mirrors, framed in Dutch neo-classical brass or Syrian bone and mother-of-pearl or English Edwardian silver and oak. “She looked in the mirrors,” Ms. Tracey said.
Rachel Leigh, 29, an illustrator, also attended as a spectator, working on a pencil drawing of Ms. Bacall as she appeared in the 1940s, that Ms. Leigh started a couple of weeks before the star died.
“She’s one of the last links to classic Hollywood that we have,” she said. “She’s just so stylish and, I don’t know, I love her and Humphrey Bogart. If I had a lot of money, I probably would’ve bid on the Louis Vuitton luggage. Those were beautiful.”
Indeed, the way Ms. Bacall’s family baggage performed, you’d think it had been stuffed with stacks of cash like in the old gangster movies. Even a used nylon Prada trolley cleared $1,000. A Hartmann steamer trunk of Mr. Bogart’s sold for $47,500; for $10,000 less, someone picked up a set of four monogrammed Vuitton cases, one of them an old-fashioned gold-hinged box.
“I flew with Betty,” Mr. Reams said, “and that’s what I used to carry her jewelry in when we were on tour. I would have loved to have had that.”
Instead he has his memories, upon which no one can put a price.
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