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Profiles in History has been featured in many national print
publications, including the New York Times, the Wall
Street Journal, Forbes magazine, and many others. We’re
proud to share some of these featured articles with you, in
which our fine historical autographs and Hollywood memorabilia
are discussed at length by many of America’s most respected
news organizations.
Please click on the boxes below for links to these stories about
our exciting collectibles!
Hollywood Auction 22

Conan O'Brian -
" A lightsaber used in the original Star Wars was bought for $200,000 at a recent auction. The buyer wishes to remain anonymous and a virgin." |
MSNBC
Star Wars Light Saber up for Auction
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TV GUIDE subscribers discovered a pleasant surprise
the week of March 13-19 in their mailboxes: a fantastic
seven-page spread featuring some the key items in our
upcoming auction! With wonderful reference images,
the article highlights some of the great pieces of TV
memorabilia available in this sale that are destined to
become broadcasting relics, including Hawkeye's robe
from M*A*S*H, Clint Eastwood's carbine rifle from Rawhide,
and Larry Hagman's hat worn as J.R. Ewing on Dallas. To
view the on-line version of the article, click on the
image below for more..

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EMMY MAGAZINE December 2003
A couple of years ago a square gray carpet from the set
of the original Star Trek series was offered for auction
by the Beverly Hills firm Profiles in History. It estimated
value: $2,000 to $3,000. The winning bid: $11,000.
TV memorabilia is big business, Joseph Maddalena,
founder and president of Profiles in History, has discovered.
In fact, he says, he started the trend. "TV was
percieved as complete garbage," Maddalena says,
from his prop -and-costume-filled headquarters on Doheny
drive. "I was the guy who got people to accept
TV memorabilia, with auction after auction since 1995...
click here for more
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Hollywood Auction 17 HEADLINE NEWS:
LA Times Calendar Section
December 9, 2003 page 1
Selling the Dreams
Film and TV history is headed to the auction block . The Black Beauty car from
The Green Hornet, a one-sheet poster for the 1936 film Flash Gordon, Aronold
Schwarzenegger's leather jacket from Terminator 2 and a spinner vehicle from
Blade Runner.
for more on this great editorial click here...
Sunday LA Times Parade Magazine
December 7, 2003
Hollywood's Closet On The Block
click here for more... |
April 26, 2003 - PRICES THAT ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD!
Featured on page 10 - April 26 Issue of TV Guide
THE ULTIMATE SCI-FI AUCTION
A tremendous success!! Brings in over 1.5 Million
Key Items such as:
- Spock 3rd Season Tunic $132,000 Auction Record!
- The B-9 Robot $264,000
- Original Darth Vader Fighting Helmet $115,000
- Klaatu's Spaceship from
The Day the Earth Stood Still $ 57,500
- The Jupiter 2 Space Ship $69,000
click here to view other TV Guide feature stories. |
Forbes Magazine: 200 SITES RATED!
Profiles in History's website BEST OF THE WEB!
The Hollywood paper trail ends here, with the widest and best catalog of high-ticket
celebrity autographs and movie-related documents, including personal letters
of stars like Vivien Leigh. Also available: a catalog of the company's biannual
auctions, featuring props, costumes, and set pieces. We spotted a ravishing gray
silk ball gown created for Bette Davis by her favorite designer, Orry-Kelly (estimated
value $3000 to $5000). PiH's only online auctions are on Ebay... |

Millionaire Magazine: signed Treasures
Collecting Historic Autographs
By Joel Zuckerman
Joseph Maddalena has the answers.
Maddalena is the founder and owner of Profiles in History, a Los Angeles-based
business that is one of America's foremost dealers of historical autographs,
letters and documents. He explains the allure of collecting these tangible pieces
of history. "All we know about history is through the written word. If it
wasn't for the letters of men like Washington and Lincoln, we would have no clear
record of what's gone on in the past." Besides their value and rarity, the
documents available at Profiles in History have tremendous educational value,
as well. "If you want to learn about the Civil War,"
Please click here for more on this amazing story... |

San Diego Union Tribune
Sunday January 4, 2004 - Cover Arts section
Lights! Camera! Auction! Film lovers willing to pay the price for a piece of
cinematic history.
click here for full story |
Hollywood Auction 16LA - July 31, 2003
August 1, 2003 LA Times: Sci-Fi Shopping spree - Movie
and television buffs spend nearly $1 million on costumes,
items at Auction
story by Patricia Ward Biederman
The Ape suit went for $55,000. The chair that once sat on the bridge of the starship
Enterprise fetched $22,500. And the body suit, made of genuine 1950's polyester
and with the giant S on the chest, commanded $110,000....moreTHE REUTERS EDGE and CNN
Showbiz Auction Eyes $150,000 for Superman Suit
By Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - When Superman donned his red cape in the 1950s, he
ran faster than a speeding bullet and was able to leap tall buildings with
a single bound, but not even he could have known that his S-emblazoned outfit
might fetch $150,000 at auction. More... |
Joe Maddalena - Featured on A&E's
THE INCURABLE COLLECTOR

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MOVIELINE - A Bid For Fame Now Costs a Fortune
click here for full story!
During a recent auction held at Profiles in History in Los Angeles, one bidder
paid $15,000 for a pair of cuffed beige trousers. Of course, those pants bore
a Warner Bros. ink stamp and handwritten label reading "5-21-54 Prod. 810
Jim Dean" indicating that they were worn by James Dean in the 1955 classic
East of Eden. Another bidder at the same auction paid $55,000 for a green taffeta
gown designed by the great Walter Plunkett for Katharine Hepburn in the 1936
feminist epic A Woman Rebels. At Christie's, Ursula Andress's bikini from 1962's
Dr. No recently fetched nearly $60,000. Like film props and other Hollywood memorabilia,
movie costumes that were once heir to hungry moths have become red-hot in the
collectibles market. Collecting film costumes is no longer merely the concern
of preservationists or a pastime enjoyed by rabid movie buffs. It has become
much more widespread—and much more expensive.
More... |
FORBES SALE
At a sale in which new records were set for 18 different
Presidents, Profiles in History took an active part in
acquiring some of the finest American historical manuscripts
ever to come up at auction. Please click here to view
highlights of this great historic sale. |
VARIETY Sept. 1 - 7, 2003
Bidding Biz Auctions thrive on hunger for memorabilia.
The rubber shark teeth went for $3,000. The sub-carpeting-
meaning the stuff below the carpet anyone walked upon
- commanded $11,000.
More... |
Antique Week Central
It's the chair, Jim, and just as we knew it
"This is without question the most important piece of Star Trek history
ever to come up at auction," read the catalog description of the June 27
sale conducted in Los Angeles by Profiles in History, a Beverly Hills, Calif.,
auction company that specializes in the sale of entertainment memorabilia. Lot
175 of the company's second Star Trek themed sale was the original captain's
chair from the bridge of the USS Enterprise, constructed at the Desilu Culver
Studios in November 1964 and first used by actor Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher
Pike in the shows first pilot episode, The Cage. It remained a focal point throughout
the entire series when occupied by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.
Click here for full story... |
Art & Antiques
Hail to the Chiefs
Presidential papers are hotter than ever.
By Dick Kagan
Deliver the Gettysburg Address to me and I'll give you $10 million," says
autograph dealer Joseph Maddalena of Profiles in History, Beverly Hills, California.
True, there are several versions of Abraham Lincoln's laconic dedicatory speech,
but all were written after its delivery at the Pennsylvania battleground. The
copy that Maddalena covets is the one that Lincoln supposedly wrote while "trying
to gather his thoughts in a concise manner...on the back of an envelope...on
the train to Gettysburg."
Click here for more on this story... |
Making money from monikers
Abandon the present especially all that overpriced contemporary
art and forget about futures, pork-bellied or otherwise.
Up in the rarefied air of Beverly Hills, Joseph Maddalena
is making a killing with a vision rooted firmly in the
past.
He and his 11 employees turn over an annual $12-million to $15-million worth
of aging manuscripts and documents that have one thing in common: they have been
autographed by history's rich and famous.
From Henry VIII to Jim Morrison, from Rasputin to Beatrix Potter, Babe Ruth to
James Dean, all are grist to the mill of Profiles in History, whose parchment
decorated premises are visited by appointment only.
Click here for more on this story... |
USA TODAY
Oct. 16, 1997
Disputed Kennedy papers investigated
Cusack and the tow dealers dispute ABC’s findings and say they are
conducting more forensic tests in an effort to prove the documents’ authenticity.
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to confirm Wednesday that an investigation
exists. But Kenneth Rendell, a documents dealer and expert on forgery, said
that his Manhattan historical documents gallery had received a subpoena from
a federal grand jury.
More on this facinating story... |
| Netscape Celebrity- Up, Up and Away: Profiles in History's
Hollywood Auction in Beverly Hills boasts memorabilia that
ranges fron Harrison Ford's "Blade Runner" pistol
to prize gets like Mel Brooks' hand written lyrics to "Springtime
for Hitler" from "The Producers." But Joseph
Maddalena, CEO of the auction house, is guessing that the
biggest bid-getter will be "by far the George Reeves
Superman costume. Its unquestionably the most important
TV costume ever. It could bring in a couple of hundred
thousand dollars. More... |
Profiles in History's listing in the Guinness Book of
Records: AUTOGRAPHS AND SIGNATURES
Most expensive
The highest price ever paid on the open market for
a single signed autograph letter was $748,000 on Dec.
5, 1991 at Christie's, New York for a letter written
by Abraham Lincoln on 8 Jan 1863 defending the Emancipation
Proclamation. It was sold to Profiles in History of
Beverly Hills, CA." |
| The Tolucan Times: The facination, passion, obsession
or compulsion - whatever one chooses to call it - to collect
and own authentic Hollywood memorabilia increases at an
astonishing rate, according to Joseph Maddalena of Profiles
in History, the number one company in the world for live
and simultaneous internet meorabilia auctions. More... |
PROFILES IN HISTORY - Participates in the prestigious
biannual International Antiques and Jewlers Art Show in
Monte-Carlo
XIe Biennale International Des Antiquaires
Joailliers & Galeries D'art - Monte-Carlo |
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