It was one of those golden afternoons that just makes you want to curl up in front of the computer and browse eBay. You know the type. I wasn’t about to resist its siren call. I went through my usual routine of visiting all my favorite websites, got into a few petty arguments, and generally just wasted my time like an idiot. Until I read that the soon-to-be-over That ’70s Show was auctioning off their props - on eBay!

In retrospect, that was kind of a sad statement about the show’s popularity at the time. After the departure of Topher Grace, the metaphorical glue who held the show together, and Ashton Kutcher, its only true celebrity, things fell apart. People - like me - stopped watching. Topher’s replacement tested poorly, and the jokes just stopped being funny, for some reason. Maybe the writers missed Topher and Ashton. Maybe, after so many years, they just didn’t care anymore.

Anyway, for whatever reason, Christie’s wasn’t going to see this lot. It was all about eBay. I was excited - it was my one chance to own a piece of television history. A very small piece. Probably a prop phone or something, with my budget.

The Forman’s kitchen table was there. I wanted it, but it was several thousand dollars and I couldn’t think of a legitimate way to explain to my parents why I’d bought a crappy ’70s table. Pretty much everything else was outside of my budget, and the rest of it was unrecognizable junk from rooms you barely saw on screen. Overall? A disappointment.

Of course, not all T.V. auctions are created equal. In fact, as we speak, Christie’s is preparing to auction off some (arguably) more important television artifacts, taken from my other beloved show. Yes - The Sopranos.

No less than 37 different outfits from the series will be for sale. Expected to be the most popular are some of Tony’s duds, including his bathrobe, the shirt from the opening credits, and his “blood”-stained getup from the shooting. Proceeds benefit the Wounded Warrior Project.

So, head down to Christie’s on June 25th if you’ve got a few extra bucks, won’t you? It’s for a good cause, and you’re guaranteed to have a better experience than I did with T.V. auctions.

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Categories: TV stories //