Christie’s will offer hundreds of incredible objects from The Jim Irsay Collection in a series of sales in March 2026. Max Touhey | www.metouhey.com

Auction house performance in 2025 demonstrated how the major houses are increasingly forced to operate at scale rather than within narrowly defined niche economies. Sotheby’s and Christie’s have both taken steps to expand their audiences by engaging with a broader range of categories across wider price points. Notably, the third-largest auction house by turnover was not Phillips but Heritage Auctions, which reported $2.16 billion in total sales in dozens of relatively accessible categories, from prints and multiples to sports memorabilia, comic books and other cultural artifacts that have shaped the zeitgeist for generations.

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To kick off the new year, Christie’s announced the auction of The Jim Irsay Collection, offering approximately 400 objects tracing pivotal moments in 20th-century music, film, sports and popular culture presented across four auctions taking place in New York between March 3 and March 17. Irsay, the owner and CEO of the Indianapolis Colts, was a deeply passionate collector who assembled a museum-quality trove of sports, music and cultural memorabilia over several decades. “Jim Irsay was an incredible collector with an eye for rare treasures tied to the most important moments in our collective history,” Julien Pradels, president of Christie’s Americas, confirmed in a statement, adding that the sale will give “collectors and visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view, be inspired by and bid on these objects.”

Among the highlights is a 1966 Fender Mustang guitar played by Kurt Cobain during the recording of Nirvana’s albums Nevermind and In Utero and featured in the music video for the band’s generational anthem Smells Like Teen Spirit. The instrument carries........

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