Kirstie Alley Scratchiti and All—Bar From Set of ‘Cheers’ Fetches $675,000 at Auction
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Sam, Coach, Norm, Cliff, Woody…everyone knows the names of the cast of Cheers, the 1980s NBC sitcom set in a Boston bar.
The set of that iconic pub sold for US$675,000 on Saturday night in Dallas, the culmination of a three-day sale helmed by Heritage Auctions.
Complete with brass hardware and the bar stools—as well as “engravings” on the bar’s surface by cast members like John Ratzenberger (Cliff) and Kirstie Alley (Rebecca), according to a video made with Ratzenberger and George Wendt (Norm) in advance of the auction—the set of the classic comedy was one of a collection of nearly 1,000 props, costumes, and sets from some of television’s most beloved shows.
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The collection—amassed over more than three decades by James Comisar, an art market specialist focused on television artifacts—realized US$5.35 million, according to Heritage. More than 4,700 bidders participated, but Heritage declined to identify any of the buyers. Comisar conserved and preserved the items with plans to open a museum, but it never came to fruition.
“The auction’s success confirmed what I have always known: that television characters are cherished members of our extended family and that their stories and our own are inseparable,” Comisar said in a statement. “These pieces have finally been afforded the cultural significance they deserve.”
Other highlights of the auction included the Batman and Robin costumes worn by Adam West and Burt Ward from the 1960s series of Batman, which were sold for US$615,000 on the first day of bidding; the set Johnny Carson used on NBC’s Tonight Show, complete with the desk, couch, and backdrop painting of downtown Burbank, Calif., realized US$275,000; and Archie and Edith Bunker’s chairs from both All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place fetched US$250,000.
There were also items from M*A*S*H, Gilligan’s Island, and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
“We knew from the moment we began working with James last year that this auction would be extraordinary, and thanks to Heritage’s client-collectors we were not wrong,” Joshua Benesh, chief strategy officer at Heritage, said in a statement. “These are amazing items with amazing stories.”
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The 1860s Darlinghurst mansion Stoneleigh could become Sydney’s most expensive home ever sold under the hammer when it goes to auction. Clint Ballard is giving buyers a $28 million guide for the heritage-listed mansion on Darley Street, opposite Iona, the former home of Hollywood royalty Baz Luhrmann. Stoneleigh is being offered for sale for the …
Set on one of the city’s last absolute riverfront sites, The Riversdale by Mosaic combines irreplaceable waterfront ownership with one of Brisbane’s most significant residential opportunities.
Gold miners are emerging as a compelling way to navigate market uncertainty, with analysts pointing to strong cash flows, attractive valuations and rising profit margins. As gold prices stabilize above US$4,000 an ounce, mining stocks could offer investors both downside protection and long-term upside.
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Gold is one of the market’s go-to hedges in rocky times. Don’t forget that gold miners’ stocks are too.
The stock market’s gains in 2026 belie the rocky macroeconomic picture: elevated inflation, heightened geopolitical tensions, and jitters about the artificial-intelligence trade. That backdrop, in theory, should be the time for gold to shine. Instead, the price of the yellow metal has tumbled more than 5% so far, after last year’s blistering 65% rally. In part, the U.S. dollar’s recovery has stymied gold, which benefited from the greenback’s weakness in 2025.
Even with the precious metal’s recent weakness, gold mining stocks could be the best way to profit from this year’s uncertainty.
Gold miners “are a valuable hedge against macro risks that would likely be damaging for equities,” BCA Research’s Noah Weisberger and Rishabh Shah wrote this week.
Concerns about the Federal Reserve’s next moves to tackle inflation, the increasingly crowded AI trade, and steep valuations for tech stocks are just some of the drivers that could help gold’s price get on even footing— and lead to even bigger gains for miner stocks.
These stocks’ prices tend to outpace gold’s moves, because the companies have fixed operational costs. So when gold’s price rallies, their profit margins soar, and vice versa. For instance, the VanEck Gold Miners GDX +7.39% exchange-traded fund has fallen 11% this year as the metal has slumped.
Now, gold’s price just needs to stabilize to help miners’ stocks take off, and that seems to be happening. The precious metal has recently found support above the $4,000 level, and has stuck in a narrow range since the end of June. But its price rose ever so slightly in July, ending a four-month losing streak for the metal. Technical analysis also suggests that gold is due for a comeback.
Barron’s recently wrote that the pullbacks for both gold miners and the metal itself are overdone. Senior technical analyst Doug Busch noted that the VanEck ETF is on the “verge of a breakout” and has the potential to hit $11o in early 2027, up more than 40% from its current price.
Gold miners also have more than their role as a market hedge going for them. Their fundamentals are solid, too, says Chris Mancini, portfolio co-manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund.
“Precious metals miners are generating substantial amounts of free cash flow given profit margins of over $2,000 per ounce, and are returning this cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends,” he said in an email.
“Buying the miners is a cheap way to get exposure to the price of gold,” he added. His fund owns Newmont NEM +6.71%, a Barron’s stock pick last year, and Agnico Eagle Mines as top holdings, as well as miners Northern Star Resources, Endeavour Mining, and Kinross Gold K+8.59%.
Miners are better businesses than they used to be, the BCA team added.
“Capex is more disciplined, margins are high and rising…and they are largely independent of the AI story,” Weisberger, BCA’s head of equities, and Shah, a senior analyst, wrote.
That last part is key. AI is disrupting the software industry and many other services and information-oriented businesses, and investors have piled into AI stocks. But ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and other large-language models aren’t going to replace the need to mine for metals.
“Equity portfolios can benefit from exposure to quality that is uncorrelated to AI risk, and gold miners fit the bill,” the BCA team said.
They recommend that investors buy the VanEck Gold Miners ETF, which owns top miners such as Agnico, Barrick Mining ABX +7.24%, and Newmont.
An important bonus for big gold miners’ stocks is that their valuations are attractive after the gold’s pullback, too. The VanEck ETF is now trading at just a little more than nine times next year’s earnings estimates. That’s a big discount to its five-year average price-to-earnings ratio of 14, according to FactSet.
What’s more, the ETF is currently valued at a more than 50% discount to the S&P 500 SPX -0.17%, which is trading for about 19 times earnings estimates for 2027. Mining stocks have typically traded at just a 25% discount to the broader market over the past five years. So there is significant upside for the group if valuations move back toward normal levels.
One factor that complicates mining stocks as a market hedge, of course, is if stocks bounce back, which has been the case so far in August.
But both the market and economic outlooks remain cloudy, and investors remain nervous about the Fed’s next moves and AI stocks. Gold miners should do just fine, even if the anxious mood on Wall Street persists.
Australia’s market is on the move again, and not always where you’d expect. We’ve found the surprise suburbs where prices are climbing fastest.
A haven for hedge-fund titans and Hollywood grandees, Greenwich is one of the world’s most expensive residential enclaves, where eye-watering prices meet unapologetic grandeur.
