Comments
By Duanemclemore 2025-05-305:425 reply "A rare look behind the red curtain of one of the most influential artists of our time..."
Even if you're in the "just looking" category like me, this is such a great glimpse into the life and creative process of a true original. I loved going through this because it ranges the gamut from completely banal stuff like light stands to the personal like custom furniture he made by hand. And then there's stuff to the just plain wacky - a couple Mr. Coffee coffeemakers currently going for $1,250!?
Anyway - thought I might not be the only David Lynch fan out there, and you may get a kick out of this.
By loehnsberg 2025-05-306:371 reply The La Marzocco espresso maker at $7000 is cheaper than buying a new one.
By Duanemclemore 2025-05-306:46 They actually point the retail value out in that listing. Lol. The idea of shopping David Lynch's estate sale like you were looking for deals is one I think he'd chuckle at.
Edited to add - I think $1,200 for two Mr. Coffees is a little over retail though...
By blitzar 2025-05-308:54 > "A rare look behind the red curtain"
OMG he had a 10 year old Sony camera and a coffee table just like me! SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB cards the choice of me and David Lynch.
The equipment might be the same, but the line between me and genius is wide.
I had the same feeling. Scrolling through it felt like watching the outtakes of a creative life. What really struck me wasn’t the expensive items, but the strangely human scale of everything. The handmade furniture, the dusty coffee makers, the fragments of ideas that never turned into stories. As someone who builds narrative systems, this felt more intimate than any documentary. You're not just seeing what Lynch created. You're seeing what he lived with, and what he quietly left behind. That’s what made me pause.
By lou1306 2025-05-3010:09 It really struck me that we both owned the same edition of Crying of Lot 49. Something about the democratization/massification of culture, I guess.
By petetnt 2025-05-3010:48 If anyone wants another glimpse behind the red curtain, I highly recommend the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life from 2016. It focuses on David Lynches upbringing and formative years as an artist up until the release of Eraserhead that completely changed the direction (or maybe rocketed forward?) of his career. It also shows Lynch working at this workshop, showing some of the tools you see on auction here too.
The collection has some absolute grails too for any fan, like the original script to Twin Peaks as Northwest Passage.
RIP to true master.
By pnut 2025-05-3010:32 "damn fine cup of coffee" is one of the top Twin Peaks memes.
I'm never sure about the estimates on auctions like this, but the fact that so many things are going way over the estimate reminds me of the Sotheby's auction of items from the failed Pharmacy bar by Damien Hirst where things were going for at least four times the estimate. I could sort of understand that for specially-made things like cocktail glasses, but it was also true of really mundane items. Clearly I just have a difference sense of value to someone else, but the fact that a really basic filter coffee maker is going for $1,750 feels pretty weird to me.
By sneak 2025-05-309:10 Being able to use David Lynch’s coffee maker each morning would bring me a lot more joy than my $3000 Macbook Pro has.
By bathtub365 2025-05-3013:04 Their estimates just seemed flat wrong in many cases. A high end espresso maker owned by David Lynch was never going to go for half its retail price like they suggested
By wesselbindt 2025-05-308:332 reply Taxes, maybe? Buy a fork for 1750, have it appraised by a friend to be worth much more than that, donate your million dollar fork to a museum to write it off.
By jazzyjackson 2025-05-309:081 reply It's because Lynch was an avid coffee drinker so it's a cute thing to buy, lots of people have enough money to spend thousands of dollars on a cute thing.
This is the auction setting the market value, no one is going to appraise the junk at 100x what it last sold for at auction
By andrewchilds 2025-05-3012:35 It’s not just David Lynch’s own coffee drinking. Making coffee (“there was a fish in the percolator!”) and drinking coffee was one of the most memorable aspects of the original Twin Peaks TV series.
I truly hope that some of this collection, such as annotated scripts/etc, eventually make their way into film or media museums.
There’s so many interesting items in here otherwise
By Duanemclemore 2025-05-307:111 reply I can only imagine that he pledged his actual papers to a museum or University film school a long time ago. It's not uncommon to do that well before you pass away. And you / your estate gets a very substantial tax break for it.
So I would -definitely- guess this is what's left after anything of scholarly or creative value was taken care of.
I mean - the sale of two of the three adjacent properties he owns just off Mulholland would be enough to keep those inheriting his estate going for a while on their own. I doubt "everything must go" to pay off creditors or something...
Anyway - yeah I can only imagine the actual papers are at a scholarly institution.
By Duanemclemore 2025-05-307:321 reply I've never gone through the process, but I imagine it would involve establishing the historical importance of the person who owned them, establishing their significance as instruments of the thing for which the person is known, and establishing their authenticity. Then from that an appraisal would be done and the proper documentation generated that would protect the donor from accusations of tax fraud. The donor and recipient would both agree upon the language of these documents and possibly on an officially recognized value for the donation.
By zxexz 2025-05-307:51 Yep, you've pretty much nailed it, at least in the US and UK.
