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Eiffel Tower staircase fragment fetches half a million euros

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-28 10:03

PARIS  – A piece of the original staircase of the Eiffel Tower fetched 553,000 euros (US$710,000), 10 times its estimated price, in a Paris auction on Wednesday.

An employee of Sotheby's Auction House stands next to a portion of the original staircase of the Eiffel Tower, during its auction sale in Paris. The 270 cm-high section, which weighs 750 kilos, fetched 553,000 euros (710,000 dollars), 10 times its estimated price. [Agencies]

The 2.7-metre (nine-foot) high chunk, the third of its kind sold in a year, went to private US buyer after a tense battle between him and another interested party who both placed bids by phone, said Sotheby's auctioneers.

The spiral section was part of the flight leading from the second to the third levels of the tower. It was scaled by Gustav Eiffel himself at the inauguration in 1889, when the lift was not yet in service.

Some descendents of Eiffel were present at Wednesday's auction.

"What we are selling is a symbol," said Cecile Verdier of Sotheby's Paris. "It's more than an object, it's a piece of Paris - of the Eiffel Tower and that's the stuff of dreams."