Tomorrow the Publican is hosting a food drive. If you donate, you get free beer. more ›

Hart Davis Hart, a Chicago-based wine auction house, just released it's half-year financial information. We knew wine buyers had money - what we didn't know is that their finances apparently are unaffected by bad economic times. This year, since January, HDH has sold 23 MILLION dollars worth of wine - up 45% from that period last year. Whoa. more ›

Whether you call Logan Square home or just visit for its many bars, restaurants and venues, you can support the ‘hood by attending the third annual "I Love Logan Square" party. Proceeds from this event go to the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, which undertakes the task of uniting neighbors, businesses, schools, and area organizations to establish a stronger, safer community. And unlike fundraisers fueled by expensive dinners or uppity galas, this one takes the form of a casual night of entertainment, neighborly mingling and dancing. more ›

Although it may be 76 years since John Dillinger was gunned down in front of the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park, collectors are still just as eager to get their hands on Dillinger collectables. Last Thursday, Chicago businessman Ed Hirschland bid on and won Dillinger's "death mask," a cast of the infamous bank robber's face made by amateur criminologist Kenneth "Doc" Coffman, who somehow got past Cook County morgue guards and poured plaster on Dillinger's face to make the cast. Hirschland bought it for $3,000--with an additional $660 in fees--at an auction held by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, 1338 W. Lake. more ›

• The City Council Transportation Committee O.K.'d a plan to allow companies to display holiday-themed displays on bridge houses even if specifics like the actual size of the displays haven't yet been determined.
• Cocaine and PCP were found in the bloodstream of a local one-year-old boy after he apparently chewed on a piece of tinfoil laced with the drugs.
• While flooding clean-up continues here, our neighbors to the north in Milwaukee are facing their own post-flooding hardships.

Sure, the main focus today in the Blagojevich case will be on closing arguments. But there will be action on the auction block as a Tribune report today details a storage unit that the Blagos are a year behind on paying and now the owner of the facility is threatening to auction those items off to pay off the bill. Not that there's apparently a whole lot worth owning: besides one boring Elvis statue, the facility's owner - Paul Lombardo - says most of the items in the unit are "largely boxes and records." Lombardo says he's sent the dead-beat gov and his attorneys a certified letter notifying them of the August 14 date for public auction of the materials if he doesn't get cash in hand. And while he's spoken to one of Blago's attorneys, there's still no money. So at 9 a.m. on the 14th, it's all for sale. Proceeds will be donated to Children's Memorial Hospital, where several of Lombardo's children have been treated and a regular charity of his. And we all remember how the hospital fits into Blago's current predicament. more ›

• Former Sun-Times owner Conrad Black has gone free on $2 million bond.
• Another step towards re-election for Mayor Daley?
• Details have been announced for the Old Town School of Folk music's expansion project.

The Newberry Math And Science Academy--an elementary Chicago Public School (Pre K-8) with a curriculum emphasis on math and science--will launch their first online auction starting today and running through March 28. The auction is hosted by Bidding For Good, and will feature a wide range of items to bid on, including Bulls courtside seats and Cubs tickets. New items are also being added every day. more ›

Former Chicago Bull Luc Longley has a few NBA championship rings and therefore probably has a few thousand dollars lying around. But instead of buying a car or a bigger house, Longley has done something a tad more unusual: he bought the naming rights to a new shrimp discovered off the coast of his native Australia. University of Melbourne doctoral student Anna McCallum discovered the new shrimp but instead of naming it herself, decided to auction off the naming rights with proceeds going to the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Longley made the winning bid of $2,900 and named the shrimp Lebbeus clarehanna after his daughter, Clare Hanna Longley, in honor of her 15th birthday. According to The Scientist: more ›

Three sketches by Pablo Picasso were sold for $36,000 in less than two minutes at Bloomington Auction Gallery's annual after-Thanksgiving estate event in central Illinois. The sketches were pieces of a dust cover for the 1954 French book, "Picasso and The Human Comedy," depicting Picasso's wife, Olga, a male nude, and a flute player and his mistress. Jason Penny, the auction manager, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he wasn't surprised that the tattered drawings largely went unnoticed by auction-goers, with most of the traffic coming in by phone and online. The names of the buyer and seller weren't disclosed. more ›

Some good news for fans of Kiddieland who are still disappointed by the closing of the popular area amusement park: two of the park's rides are staying in the area. The Little Dipper roller coaster will be relocated to Six Flags Great America and the purchaser of the famed carousel hopes to get it up and running in the area. The rides were part of an auction earlier this week. Frank Zygmunt of Westmont paid a total of $420,000 for the carousel told the Proviso Herald: more ›

• Prosecutors raised the amount that Chicago Police Sgt. John Pallohusky has been accused of stealing from the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association; previously listed as $600,000, it was increased to almost $1 million. Pallohusky faces charges of with felony theft and money laundering.
• The Washington Post is closing several bureaus, including the one here in Chicago, in an attempt to save money.
• The owner of a pair of Gary, Indiana casinos has filed for bankruptcy as he awaits a decision by the state about allowing casinos to be built on land.

It was just a few weeks ago that we mourned the closing of famed local amusement park Kiddieland. And now, the rides aren't even cold but they're being torn down and auctioned off, giving you a chance to buy your favorite ride. Why? Because the would-be buyer who wanted to buy the park as a whole and relocate it to Utica, IL defaulted. So now you'll have a chance to own a piece of the park as they dismantle it. Five of the park's rides and train have been sold to other amusement parks but there will still be 20 rides - including the carousel and Roto Whip - to choose from come the auction on November 24. more ›

A ridiculously massive mansion in Burr Ridge named "Villa Taj" is being put up for auction at a fraction of its cost, all because one-half of the couple that built the home decided that she wasn't a fan of Chicago's cold weather. "He was going to spend the rest of his life in this house," real estate broker and auctioneer Mike Berland told the Chicago Sun Times of homeowners Husam Aldairi and Rawaa Atta-Aldairi. "About halfway into the project, the wife decided she couldn't stand the Chicago winters anymore," Berland said. So the Aldairi's and their three children packed up and moved to Florida, leaving behind their $18 million and five years in the making mansion, that has never been lived in or appraised. Property taxes on the land alone, according to Berland, are $27,000 a year. more ›

Wondering what to get that obsessed Elvis fan for Christmas? If you have deep pockets, you may want to check out the auction being held this Sunday by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers. Over 200 items - from photos to autographs to sweat-stained clothes - will be auctioned off. The headline item, though, seems to be a clump of Elvis' hair. There's no projection for how much the hair will go for, but a few years back a similar clump sold for $115,000. We're betting Blago really wishes he had that kind of money right about now. Check out all the items being auctioned. Many of the items come from "Gary Pepper Collection of Elvis Presley Memorabilia"; Pepper ran an Elvis fan club and eventually befriended Presley. [AP, Tribune] more ›

Our pals at the Chicago Reader are now under new management. New York-based hedge fund Atalaya Capital Management bought the Reader's parent company Creative Loafing for $5 million. Atalaya managing partner Michael Bogdan told the Reader's Michael Miner, "It's absolutely our intention to run it. The Reader's a great publication and we want to make it even better." Whet Moser has more and Miner also spoke to former Tribune managing editor Jim O'Shea who will likely play a role under the new management. more ›

First Filter in Wicker Park, now Tony Rezko's mansion. Where will the injustice's stop, Bank of America??? more ›

An auction of some things related to legendary bank bandit John Dillinger - didn't they make a movie about him recently - fetched some decent coin at a recent auction. A hand-written letter from Dillinger to his niece Mary Hancock sold for $60,400, more than 10 times than it expected to go for. A gun used in the dramatic shoot-out that killed Dillinger in front of the Biograph Theater also sold for a good price, at $36,400. [WBBM] more ›

Buy this old post office! The auction selling off the old Main Chicago Post Office (433 W. Van Buren) kicks off August 27 and Rick Levin & Associates Inc., which is running the auction, has suggested opening bid of $300,000. Which is cheaper than a helluva lot of condos and houses on the North Side. Of course, we expect to sell for just a little bit more than that. Sure, it's a fixer-upper, but: three million square feet, on the river, easy access to an interstate that, uh, passes underneath it, West Loopish location...[Sun-Times] more ›

If you haven't yet had your fill of auctions involving Chicago landmarks, why not go for something a little more...unique? Say, something from outer space? If you're still in it to win it, you're in luck. The famous "Garza Stone" is going up for auction. The stone is actually a meteorite chunk that crashed through the house of Park Forest resident Noe Garza on March 26, 2003. Heritage Auctions out of Dallas is coordinating the auction and the minimum bid is $42,000. David Herskowitz, director of natural history at Heritage Auctions, told the Tribune, "Very few meteorites that have ever hit the Earth have had human encounters like this...The smaller the target a meteorite hits, the more valuable it becomes." He added, "The market is better for meteorites now and the prices seem to keep going up and up." We honestly had no idea there was even a market for meteorites. more ›

Jonesing for a piece of Chicago history and have a little cash to burn? You're in luck as legendary auction house Christie's will soon be auctioning off pieces of the long-since-demolished Chicago Stock Exchange Building. Designed by Louis Sullivan, completed in 1894, and demolished for good by 1972, pieces of the building will be auctioned off on June 2. According to the Trib: more ›

Times are tough all over and the economy knows no barrier. One person feeling the pinch pretty hard is former Chicago Bull Randy Brown, a Chicago native and part of the second three-peat Chicago Bulls teams of '96, '97, and '98. Brown was most recently a coach with the Sacramento Kings but was fired and has since filed for bankruptcy. And now the bankruptcy judge in the case has ruled that Brown must auction the rings. The bidding begins May 19 and the price starts at $19,000. You can check out the rings for yourself here. [WBBM, Sun-Times] more ›

CSB School of Broadcasting will make its way to the auction block on May 8 after the school went bankrupt in early March, according to a Chi-Town Daily News report. more ›

Got several hundred dollars to burn for some prime seats to watch the Cubs and Nationals play? In this economy, who doesn't? For the Cubs fan who has everything, including that spare pocket change, the auction for those prime Chicago Board Options Exchange seats begins today (right now, actually) and runs through next Wednesday, March 11. You've seen the seats, the ones between the Cubs dugout and home plate with the giant CBOE banner beneath them. The seats, 71 in all, are available as season tickets in groups of two, four or five. So get bidding! [via the Trib] more ›

A handwritten copy of a speech given by President Lincoln in November 1864 fetched $3.44 million in an auction in New York yesterday. The speech was given by Lincoln on November 10, 1864 after he won re-election and the manuscript is in Lincoln's own hand. According to the AP: "The manuscript was sold to an anonymous phone bidder after spirited bidding in a crowded Christie's auction house room. Proceeds from the sale will go toward a new wing for a library in New York's Finger Lakes region, where the document has been since 1926." It's a new record for Lincoln-related auctions, topping the $3.4 million that was paid for a letter Lincoln wrote to a group of children asking him to free "little slave children.'' more ›

• Federal investigators on the Jon Burge torture case have widened their scope to include several of Burge's former colleagues.
• A new police unit on the West Side, led by commander James Roussell, has seen dramatic improvements in violent crime statistics. Roussell credits using a similar strategy he used against insurgents when fighting in Iraq as a Marine Reserve officer.
• State Representative Cynthia Soto is asking for a one-year moratorium on the closing and reorganizing of several Chicago-area schools.

Chicago food pantries are running out of food and thanks to our turbulent economy the number of people turning to food pantries for assistance has increased over 30% since last year. Last night the Chicago Food Depository, a non-profit organization that donates food to over 600 pantries, soup kitchens and shelters and to over 500,000 adults and children every year, held its 15th Annual Bag Hunger Auction to expected success. more ›

Local fine wine broker/auctioneer Hart Davis Hart is, at this moment, auctioning off the Fox Collection. The collection is both the largest single-owner collection ever to be sold in Chicago and the largest collection of Lafite Rothschild ever offered at auction. The auction runs through tomorrow and a live audio stream is running here (Internet Explorer only, WTF?). more ›

Remember when we told you about that quasi-Illinois-shapped corn flake? Well, it sold yesterday. $1,350. Only $50 more than what we told you bidding had topped last Monday. But in between, Ebay cancelled the auction, saying it violated their food policy. So the two sisters who listed the flake instead listed a coupon redeemable for a corn flake shaped like Illinois. more ›

There is little we like more than an afternoon spent browsing through old books, even if we can't afford to buy any of them. Which is why we're planning on spending the next couple of days at the Leslie Hindman October Book Auction, featuring rare and extremely expensive books (like this Henry Gray Anatomy text, which is expected to sell for $4,000 to $6,000). Look for us as we polish our monocle while pretending to be able to afford anything. You can view the entire catalogue here. more ›