A piece of the original staircase of the Eiffel Tower sold for 553,000 euros (NT$ 23,748,000), 10 times its estimated price, in a Paris auction last month.
The 2.7m high chunk, the third of its kind sold in a year, went to a 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.
PHOTO: EPA
Some descendents of Eiffel were present at the 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.”(AFP)
上個月在巴黎一場拍賣會中，一段艾菲爾鐵塔的原始階梯以五十五萬三千歐元（新台幣兩千三百七十四萬八千元）高價賣出，是原先估價的十倍。
蘇富比拍賣商表示，這段二點七公尺高的階梯是今年內賣出的第三段；一位美國私人買主和另一組買方經過激烈的電話競標後，由美國買家得標。
這段螺旋梯屬於艾菲爾鐵塔第二層通往第三層的部份。一八八九年的鐵塔落成典禮上，古斯塔夫•艾菲爾曾親自爬上這段階梯，當時還沒有電梯可搭。
愛菲爾鐵塔部分退役零組件也在那場拍賣會上拍賣。
巴黎蘇富比公司的瑟西爾•維狄爾說：「我們賣的是一種象徵。」
「它不僅是一件物品，它是巴黎的一部分──艾菲爾鐵塔的一部份，夢想的本質。」(法新社�翻譯：袁星塵）
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