The late rapper Biggie Smalls' (The Notorious B.I.G.'s) leather jacket will be auctioned April 19-21

April 5, 2012 - PRLog -- (OCEANSIDE, N.Y.) - The original black leather jacket worn by the late Brooklyn rap artist Biggie Smalls (aka 'The Notorious B.I.G.'), plus a full-year sheet of Chinese Year of the Monkey stamps from 1980 (est. $100,000+), Disney items, Hollywood memorabilia and more will be sold at a three-day, four session sale planned for April 19-21 by Philip Weiss Auctions.

   The event will take place at Philip Weiss Auctions' spacious gallery, located at #1 Neil Court in Oceanside. Nearly 2,000 mostly fresh-to-the market lots will cross the block, in many categories: stamps, coins, postcards, toys, trains, toy soldiers, dolls, Disney items, animation and animation art, toys, figurines, Hollywood memorabilia, rock 'n' roll collectibles and much more.

   Internet bidding will be provided by Proxibid.com and Auctionzip.com.

   The Biggie Smalls jacket is expected to attract intense bidder interest, mainly because the rapper was a larger-than-life figure, both literally and figuratively. Smalls was born Christopher George Latore Wallace on May 21, 1972. He took the name Biggie Smalls after a character in the 1975 movie Let's Do It Again and became a central figure in the East Coast hip-hop scene.

   In 1994, Smalls released a debut album with the prescient title Ready to Die. Although he was born in New York and based there, the rapper got caught up in the East Coast-West Coast feud that led to his drive-by killing by an unknown assailant in Los Angeles, on March 9, 1997. His killing may have been retribution for the shooting death of another rapper, Tupac Shakur.

   The jacket will be sold in the second session on Saturday, April 21, starting at 2 p.m. It will be offered with other items dedicated mainly to Hollywood and rock 'n' roll. The rock items include a copy of the iconic “butcher” cover of the Beatles' Yesterday and Today album, rare concert posters for many rock legends, a Randy Travis jacket and Tanya Tucker pants and boots.

   The auction will kick off on Thursday, April 19, at 4 p.m., with an afternoon-evening session dedicated to stamps, coins and postcards. The star lot of the day will be the full-sheet 1980 Chinese Year of the Monkey stamps, for which bidding is expected to reach or exceed $100,000. A similar full-sheet sold at auction for $70,000, but the value has gone up since then.

   Other items will include a group of extremely rare unopened booklets of foreign military currency, gold and silver coins, graded coins, Russian stamps and postcards, stamps from the estate of Charles Russ, Part 2 of the Chicago Collection, more of the Great Lakes Collection, stamps in specialty albums, box lots, attic hoards and postcards (to include estate collections).

   Toys, trains, toy soldiers and dolls will take center stage on Friday, April 20, at 2 p.m. Offered will be a selection of pressed steel trucks and vehicles, two rare mint-in-the-box Marx playsets, H-O brass train engines from the Kozsey estate, early German and French toys, a tin lithograph Lehmann Halloh motorcycle, and die-casts, to include Dinky, Matchbox and Politoys.

   Also offered on April 20 will be trains (including Part 3 of a large American Flyer collection), items from the San Francisco Toy Collection (featuring battery-ops and dolls from the 1950s-1970s), toy soldiers (including Britains sets and Courtenay Knights), a wonderful selection of vintage tin lithographed character toys, wind-ups, Fisher Price toys and more.

   The Saturday, April 21 session, starting at 10 a.m., will be dominated by Disney. Lots to watch include a spectacular animation cel of the Seven Dwarfs (plus many other animation and production cels), the Joel Cohen Disney Collection (to include ephemera book lots), a single-owner collection of Disney Armani and Laldro figures, Ron Lee sculptures and Disney classics.

   After a brief intermission, the second session of the day will start, at around 2 p.m. Some Hollywood memorabilia will include a rare 1946 Pageant Magazine from 1946 with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, a collection of over 3,000 movie posters, half-sheets, one-sheets, inserts, larger posters (to be sold in bulk lots), some singles, box lots of photos and negatives, and more.

   The rock 'n' roll portion will feature posters for some of the greatest names in history: the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (for the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms). Also featured will be handbills, photos and autographed guitars, posters and other items (Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Van Halen).

   Philip Weiss Auctions also has two auctions lined up for May. On Friday, May 11, at 12 noon, the firm will conduct an estate sale, featuring fine art, Royal Doulton, sterling silver, pottery and more. Then, on Thursday, May 24, it will hold an auction featuring toys, trains, toy soldiers and dolls. These sales will be held in the showroom at #1 Neil Court in Oceanside, N.Y.

   Philip Weiss Auctions is always accepting quality consignments for future sales. To consign an item, an estate or a collection, you may call them at (516) 594-0731, or e-mail them at phil@weissauctions.com. To learn more about Philip Weiss Auctions and the firm’s calendar of events, to include the upcoming April 19-21 sale, please log on to www.weissauctions.com.

                  - 30 -

# # #

Ken Hall writes pre-sale and post-sale press releases for auction houses, for a fee. He writes, submits and tracks stories for clients. Submissions are published in trade magazines, posted on industry websites and appear in local newspapers.