How much would any reasonable person pay for a sofa? We all want good quality, style and comfort and most buyers would be prepared to pay a reasonable price to get the item they want. However there are buyers who are prepared to pay whatever is necessary to get the item they desire, whether that is over £2000 for a sofa once sat on by Edward 7th and Mrs Simpson or £25,000 to £50,000 for one of the five art installations created by Salvador Dali, the Mae West sofas.
Many celebrities now have their own interior design ranges including furniture, wall coverings and soft furnishings. Very often these pieces of labeled furniture can be a lot more expensive than identical non-labeled pieces. Celebrity ranges are usually fashionable and modern but very often these fashions go out as quickly as they come in and because they have been designed as part of a range and individual items can be costly to replace or update.
Sometimes items of furniture such as sofas will become famous because of their famous owners or former owners. Celebrities very often contribute items to auctions to raise money for charity, in 2007 the Osbornes had a large auction which included the sofa sat on by Ozzy during the MTV television series. Recently Gary Barlow auctioned off his spare belongings in an anonymous auction, a pair of sofas owned by the Barlows were sold for £2500 whilst a single leather sofa sold for £35, so some items go for large sums of money whilst others for much less. Some celebrities are prepared to pay astronomical prices for the sofa of their choice, Coleen Rooney so loved crystals that she reportedly paid over £10,000 for a bespoke crystal encrusted sofa. The sofas in the Big Brother are always much admired and keenly anticipated and very often these are auctioned off to the viewing public.
Perhaps one of the most famous sofas of recent years is the orange sofa featured in the television programme Friends. September saw the 15th anniversary of the show and part of the celebration festivities included the opening of a replica Central Perk in London. Fitted out like the original in the television show the replica includes the famous orange sofa sat on by Rachel, Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe and Monica. People have queued for hours to have their photograph taken sitting on the famous sofa. It would be very interesting to see how much the original sofa would fetch if it was ever auctioned.
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