By John DeFore

Fans of Hollywood history had a field day last Thursday and Friday. That’s when an online auction offered by the celeb-happy collectors at Profiles in History took bids on items that transcend everyday autographs and promotional mementos.

When the virtual gavel went down Thursday, eBay bidders battled over items that are one-of-a kind, and others that, though mass-produced in their day, are now so rare they might as well be one-of-a-kind. It was a Hollywood-centered bonanza consisting of more than 1,100 lots (a few of which, like this menagerie, of actress headshots, are small collections in and of themselves).

“Most of the stuff comes from estates,” says Profiles founder Joseph Maddalena, who was proud to offer, for example, a wealth of material once owned by iconic flapper Clara Bow, but won’t reveal the name of every seller. “Sometimes it will [be listed] and sometimes it won’t. We have some people who are anonymous who are actors and actresses . . . like we have Yvonne De Carlo who was in The Ten Commandments [before becoming the matriarch of TV’s The Munsters] — we have her script, and we have all her stuff from The Ten Commandments in this auction. She’s dead, her son consigned them; some people want their name out there, some people don’t, they want their privacy.”

Maddalena is a collector, but says “I don’t collect Hollywood things. I collect gems and minerals, I collect illustration art.” Which would explain how he can act as middleman to goodies that many collectors would keep all to themselves. His firm has been doing Hollywood auctions for five years, and they estimate that this one could bring in about $4 million.

Here is a short selection of items that bidders drooled over:

Lot #8, a mildly sultry glamour portrait of Miss Bow, is one of hundreds of star portraits included, many of them coming from Bow herself. Many are signed: Harold Lloyd, for instance, was one of the male stars inscribing a headshot to his hairdresser Carmen Dirigo. This lot was estimated to be worth $800 to $1,200, but it sold for $4,500.

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