Eiffel Tower Stair Segment Sells for €450,160 at Paris Auction

Overview

• A 14-step spiral section of the original 1889 Eiffel Tower staircase measuring about 2.7 meters and weighing 1.4 tonnes sold for €450,160 at Artcurial in Paris.
• The final price was roughly three times the pre-sale estimate of €120,000 to €150,000 and exceeded expectations for the lot.
• Artcurial’s Art Déco design director Sabrina Dolla said the purchase is like buying a “piece of Paris” and attributed part of the heightened demand to the visibility generated by the Paris 2024 Olympics.
• The buyer was present in the auction room and the sale falls short of the record €550,000 paid by a U.S. private buyer in 2008 but continues a pattern of strong prices for tower fragments.
• Over more than four decades about 160 meters of the original staircase were removed when elevators were installed and those sections now appear in museums, private collections and public sites from New York to Japan.