Beedle The Bard

Wow, there is one born every minute. Let's hear it for peoples' values. Objects have certain values intrinsic to their characteristics. For some people it's a creative work of antiquity, including items of value that have somehow survived to come down to us from their antique past where they were vessels of ordinary utility, like wine jars, and in their intact state represent museum items of great attraction and social-historical value.

Artistic geniuses of the past who have enriched the world with their creations on canvass, with their gifted manuscripts, monuments and sculptures, and sublime architectural achievements which have withstood the test of time and atmospheric environment. These and more, represent to a great many people objects worth while of admiration and of inestimable monetary value.

There are other categories of desirous objects, needless to say. Fabulous jewels such as those made by Cartier or Faberge, exquisite in their design, materials and workmanship. Furniture which has been hand-made of fine materials and conception, speaking of an era long past. Auction houses offer these and far more for moneyed connoisseurs to bid up and successfully award themselves ownership of.

It's amazing but more or less within the realm of understanding that a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, Auguste Renoir, Raphael, Vincent Van Gough, or Hieronymus Bosch will bring down what was once thought to be a king's ransom to attain. In the world of acquisition surprises abound; for many non-representational artworks of modern vintage which still demands millions to take possession of, seems money ill spent.

But then, we're talking personal tastes. And, of course, another element entirely - investment with the thought that whatever the object of desire, it has invested in it the potential to increase in value, thus expanding one's investment toward the future when that same object will be offered up once again for auction, realizing an even greater sale price.

Sometimes, the mind truly boggles. The runaway success, for example, of a series of quasi-child-centred literature like the Harry Potter books. And that its celebrated author (and good on her; more earning power to her in this world of truly peculiar celebrity and values) could undertake to hand-scribe a few trifling bits of literature aligned with her runaway literary success and parlay one for $4-million.

She has earned through her royalties more than enough to keep her and her offspring in comfort. And, it would seem, unlike many others whose ideas and work have been copyrighted, isn't dreadfully rigid about insisting that others "respect" her creative genius by desisting from copying it. Her social conscience displays itself in her charity, co-founding a Children's Voice campaign for disadvantaged children.

Which charity is destined to receive the proceeds of the trifle's untrifling sale price. Nice work.