Testing the waters: Trump’s 2nd wife auctions off some relics
Soon, anyone looking to snag a piece of the Trump legacy will get their chance — without stealing towels from the White House bathrooms.
Nate D. Sanders Auctions, which recently sold a lock from the Watergate scandal, is selling two candlesticks (leftover wax included!) that once lit up Donald Trump and then-wife Marla Maples’s dinner table during happier times. The pair of “handcarved gilt angels” — or two naked babies with wings holding grapes — will hit the open market Thursday with a starting bid of $6,000.
According to the auction house, the authenticated candlesticks were last auctioned off in 2013 by Maples, who has a history of Marie Kondo-ing the last vestiges of her marriage to Trump. Following their 1999 divorce, Maples sold the 7.45-carat emerald-cut platinum engagement ring Trump gave her eight years before. That rock fetched $110,000, which she donated to charity. At the time, Trump called the sale “pretty tacky” and “really ridiculous.”
At the same auction in which she sold the candlesticks, Maples offloaded a U-Haul’s worth of other goods from her high-profile marriage, including art, clothes, luggage, furniture from several of their homes, and a bottle of 1945 Chateau Lafite Rothschild wine that they had received as a wedding gift. A portion of proceeds from that auction went to charity and the rest to Maples, who unlike “first Trump wife” Ivana, received a small (by Trump standards) post-divorce settlement of $2 million.
So why is the latest owner of the candlesticks willing to part with them now? According to a representative from Nate D. Sanders, “the consignor thought now would be a good opportunity to test the market” — you know, seeing as how Trump is currently the leader of the free world. That also means more artifacts from his second marriage just might end up on whatever eBay-type site rich people use. And the proof could be in the presidential seal. That engagement ring that Maples auctioned off almost two decades ago? It was resold in 2016 for $300,000 during the height of election fever.