Photo: courtesy Mossgreen-Webbs
Don Binney
La Chute d'Icare (the Fall of Icarus), Pureora: The Last Flight of the Kokako.
Oil on Board, 1979
H2130mm.
One of the highlights from the Warwick and Kitty Brown art collection at Mossgreen-Webb's was lot 18, a major ornithological and environmental artwork from New Zealand artist Don Binney.
Estimated at $300,000 - $500,000, it was hammered down for $529,000, a clear auction record for the artist. Prices have seen a dramatic upward trajectory in recent years for his bird paintings. 
The artwork was created at the request of an environmental group looking for a fundraising postcard to help save the ancient forests at Poreora.
The provenance and a perfect culmination of the artists technique (combed paint and palette-knife application), environmental vision and a deep admiration of New Zealand birdlife saw this painting make a deserved artist auction record and a worthy place in the canon of great New Zealand paintings.

Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby's. Artist: Basquiat Untitled 1982.
RECORD AUCTION PRICE FOR BASQUIAT and RECORD PRICE FOR AN AMERICAN ARTIST AT AUCTION. 

​A 1982 untitled artwork by American Jean-Michel Basquiat reached dizzying new heights at Sotheby's contemporary art auction  in New York. The artwork sold for US$110.5 million (including buyer's premium), to Japanese collector Yusaka Maezawa, who is currently establishing an art museum in Chiba, Japan.
​This price puts the artwork in the top ten most expensive artworks ever sold at auction.
The artwork was originally purchased in 1984, for US$19,000 by an astute collector, whose daughters were selling the picture.
​The previous auction record for a Basquiat was sold at Christies, in May 2016. Also another untitled artwork from 1982, for US$57.3 million (including buyer's premium).
Basquiat died in 1988 aged 27.

Image: Lot 2109954 Limited Edition Gold Elvis LP. Governmentauctions.com
Interesting to read that prices for Elvis Presley memorabilia have been plummeting recently. In a very informative article in the Guardian it notes that for the 'first time in popular music history, Elvis records and collections were dropping in value.' Examples include, Good Rockin' Tonight LP listed in the 1998 Rare Record Guide at 125 pounds, but according to online record database Discogs - 0ver the past ten years the median price it has fetched is 13 pounds and fifty pence. In December 2015 a rare, market fresh acetate recording of Suspicion emerged. Expected to sell for 12,000 pounds at auction, it only realised 6,000 pounds, sending a collective chill through investors of Elvis memorabilia.
For the past fifty years Elvis has been the gold standard in music memorabilia collecting but a combination of an ageing and shrinking base of collectors and a flood of stock on the market as the collectors pass on has seen prices drop dramatically.
Is it possible this may happen to Beatles memorabilia in the future, when fans who had a direct connection to the music age and new generations lack the emotive nostalgia that drives a lot of the collecting. I think that the Beatles had such a massive influence on the pop culture landscape that any items directly associated with the Beatles will continue to hold their value but any secondary or lesser quality collectables will drop off in collectability. 
The old adage holds true; always buy what you love, then if it losses value, you still love it.