News: A Piece of Hollywood for Christmas
November 26th, 2005 by Laurie BarakSource: The San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego, CA
Here’s the perfect gift for someone who has everything: The original 1923 “Hollywood” sign.
Poker-DVD producer Dan Bliss started selling started selling jewelry welded from the sign. Now he’s unloading the entire international icon on eBay. When I checked the auction site on Saturday about 5 p.m., there were no bids on the $300,000 auction. You can view the eBay auction here.
Whoever nabs the world-famous sign that put Tinseltown on the map will need a football field to assemble it. Bliss believes he’s got most of the 300-foot-wide, 50-foot-high monument – he previously sold five large chunks and has been marketing small framed pieces, along with necklaces embedded with sign bits – but he admits it’s hard to know what’s missing. That’s because the dismantled, battered sign, made of metal barn roofing, is in flattened rectangular and angled sections stacked to the ceiling in a self-storage shed Bliss rents for about $100 a month. The rusty, paint-chipped relic is also scrawled with graffiti left by vandals before it was torn down for the current sign in 1978.
The old Hollywood sign was originally “Hollywoodland”, named for the area it overlooked from its lofty peak. It saw a lot in its day, including a despondent starlet who climbed up the “H” and leaped to her death. Once the”D” toppled over, as well as an “O”, then an arsonist set fire to one of the “L”s.
After all, on eBay, Bliss makes a hard showbiz sell: “Unless the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty are put up for sale, this will be your last chance to own one of the world’s most famous structures.”
Shipping is not included.
Bliss is hoping a collector, musem or tourist attraction site will purchase the sign.
Link to the entire Union Tribune article here.
For Bliss’s web site, Authentic Hollywood, click here. You can purchase lithographs and jewelry of the sign, learn about its history and more.
The world-famous Hollywood sign.
