In perhaps the grodiest Beatles-related auction ever, John Lennon's tooth sold for nearly $32,000 on Saturday (November 5). Fittingly, the purchaser is a Canadian dentist and author named Michael Zuk.
Zuk's bid on the manky molar, which you can see above, was capped at $31,200, almost twice the anticipated $16,00 figure the UK's Omega Auctions had predicted when the item was announced last month.
An interview with the CBC revealed that Zuk himself was surprised at how much he spent on the item, but felt he needed it, despite its nastiness. It seems, however, the auction winner's interests coalesced through the ancient, yellowed and decayed tooth.
"It's a fair chunk of coin for a tooth," he said. "It's pretty ugly, most people are quite appalled by it.
"It quickly surpassed what I wanted to spend and at some point I thought it doesn't really matter what I spend, it's still going to seem like a crazy amount."
The dentist, who authored the toothy tome Confessions of a Former Cosmetic Dentist, will showcase the discarded chomper, which Lennon had given to his housekeeper Dot Jarlett in the late '60s, at his practice in Red Deer, AB. That said, he knows not everyone is going to want to check out his rank memorabilia.
With all that fervour over the discarded body part, it sort of makes that, uh, more practical Lennon toilet auction a while back seem a lot more sane.
Zuk's bid on the manky molar, which you can see above, was capped at $31,200, almost twice the anticipated $16,00 figure the UK's Omega Auctions had predicted when the item was announced last month.
An interview with the CBC revealed that Zuk himself was surprised at how much he spent on the item, but felt he needed it, despite its nastiness. It seems, however, the auction winner's interests coalesced through the ancient, yellowed and decayed tooth.
"It's a fair chunk of coin for a tooth," he said. "It's pretty ugly, most people are quite appalled by it.
"It quickly surpassed what I wanted to spend and at some point I thought it doesn't really matter what I spend, it's still going to seem like a crazy amount."
The dentist, who authored the toothy tome Confessions of a Former Cosmetic Dentist, will showcase the discarded chomper, which Lennon had given to his housekeeper Dot Jarlett in the late '60s, at his practice in Red Deer, AB. That said, he knows not everyone is going to want to check out his rank memorabilia.
With all that fervour over the discarded body part, it sort of makes that, uh, more practical Lennon toilet auction a while back seem a lot more sane.
