Elvis’ Mercedes-Benz 450SL, Harley are no match for Cobain’s sweater
With temperatures falling and winter fast approaching, it only makes sense that Kurt Cobain’s sweater received more interest than Elvis Presley’s motorcycle at Julien’s Rock ’n’ Roll Auction over the weekend. It also received a whole lot more money.
Cobain’s olive-green cardigan, which the legendary rocker wore during a performance on MTV Unplugged in New York on November 18, 1993, as well as the cover of the ensuing live album, sold for an astonishing $334,000 in spirited bidding in Los Angeles and over the telephone. It was a record price for a sweater and cost about as much as 8350 new $40 cardigans from Old Navy—11,133 if you can wait until Black Friday.
Cobain, frontman for the grunge band Nirvana, died by suicide in 1994 at the age of 27.
Presley’s 1976 Harley Davidson XLH Sportster 1000, which he purchased before his death in 1977, sold for $106,250—16 times the average value of a non-celebrity-owned XLH Sportster 1000 in #1 (Concours) condition. Another of Elvis’ two-wheel rides, a red tandem bicycle from Huffy, went for $15,625. Presley’s beloved 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Gold Coupe, which Julien’s says he drove from his Graceland mansion in Memphis whenever he wanted to travel “incognito,” sold for $125,000, four times the value of an identical model in #1 condition ($33,300).
