$973,850
When Aston Martin produced the DB2/4 between 1953 and 1955, it aimed to adapt the DB2 to reach a larger, untapped demographic—"sports car enthusiasts with a family." Thus, the 2+2 DB2/4 saloon had enough extra space to house rear seats that folded to form a cargo area that could be accessed from the rear door. In essence, it was a hatchback pioneer. The DB2/4 also was offered as a drophead coupe, perhaps intended for sports car enthusiasts without families. All told, of the 565 DB2/4s manufactured, only 12 were sent to independent coachbuilders, and of those dozen, eight were attended to at Carrozzeria Bertone in Italy. A 1954 Aston Martin DB2/4 Bertone drophead coupe (chassis no. LML506), the fifth car in this rarefied run, was a highlight at Bonhams’ sale at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England in July, and sold for £606,500 (about $973,850).

Boasting a maximum speed of 120 mph, the Aston DB2/4 was one of the fastest British cars at the time. Besides its 125 hp, 2.6-liter VB6E engine, it was unusually smooth and comfortable for a high-performance vehicle. This particular Bertone drophead DB2/4 originally was ordered by Mrs. Edith Field of San Francisco, a sports car enthusiast whom one friend described as possessing the "panache found only in people of significant means." Mrs. Field showed the car at Pebble Beach in 1955, where it won a third-place trophy in Class C, the category for two-seater sports cars ranging in price from $4,500 to $10,000. Before chassis no. LML 506 received a concours-worthy, four-year restoration under the watch of its most recent seller, the car’s previous owners included Grand Prix driver Innes Ireland and dealer/collector David Clark. Perhaps of greatest significance is the car’s pristine condition—despite its capabilities as a joy ride, this particular DB2/4 has logged fewer than 30 miles on the road.

$109,000
"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone," declared Al Capone, the most famous gangster of the Prohibition era. Those words may have been in reference to Capone’s .38 special, the mobster’s revolver that sold in June for £67,250 (about $109,000) at a Christie’s Antique Arms, Armour and Collectors’ Firearms sale in London.

Immortalized in numerous movies and television programs, Capone rose to prominence by capitalizing on Chicagoans’ thirst for spirits—he smuggled alcohol into the city and oversaw those operations from his headquarters at the Metropole and Lexington hotels. Though his criminal activities extended beyond operating speakeasies and included gambling, prostitution, and the corruption of public officials, Capone became something of a folk hero for providing headline fodder and for cultivating a high-profile image dictated by finely tailored suits and an ever-present cigar.

Despite his ruthless and violent reputation, not to mention an association with events such as the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in which several of his enemies were murdered, Capone finally was imprisoned for the high crime of tax evasion.

This .38 special is a "police positive" nickel-plated six-shot double-action revolver made by Colt. An accompanying affidavit attested that the gun was passed from Alphonse "Al" Capone to his brother, Ralph "Bottles" Capone. (Ralph’s nickname derived from his ownership of an allegedly legitimate bottled-water business in Chicago.) The gun changed hands once more before going on the auction block.

$126,500
When Babe Ruth blasted the longest home run of his career, on September 5, 1929, the ball sailed not over a ballpark’s outfield fence but over the guardhouse atop the 40-foot-high wall of Sing Sing prison in Ossining, N.Y.

As part of their duties as New York Yankees, Ruth and his teammates often were dispatched to play barnstorming games, one of which pitted the reigning World Series champions against Sing Sing’s "Black Sheep" inmate team. According to eye witness accounts, when Ruth connected during his first at bat, the ball flew over the heads of the prison guards and the barbed wire, past the New York Central railroad tracks, and landed beyond the prison administration building 620 feet away from home plate.

"Gee, I wish I was riding out of here on that one!" commented one Black Sheep baseman who was 15 years into a 25-year sentence. Indeed, the New York Times reported that Ruth’s drive in the second inning was "the longest nonstop flight by an object or person leaving Sing Sing by that route for the past handful of decades." The Bambino further entertained the limited number of attendees that day by hitting two more home runs in subsequent innings.

At Hunt Auctions’ FanFest Live Auction, held in conjunction with Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in Phoenix on July 12, Babe Ruth’s home-run bat from that Sing Sing game sold for $126,500. The bat was consigned by the family of the prison’s former athletic director, Gerald Curtain, who had believed that athletic programs aided in the rehabilitation of the prisoners. According to auction experts who examined the labeling, it is believed that the bat, a Louisville Slugger, was probably several years old at the time, which supports the theory that professional players did not use their favorite current-season bats for prison exhibition games. The barrel of the bat shows stitch marks from various baseballs, cleat impressions, and a chip on the handle, all of which indicate that it was a well-used piece of equipment. As part of the auction lot, a baseball autographed by 20 players on the prison team accompanied Ruth’s storied bat.

$1.4 Million
Although "foot-ball" has been enjoyed in some form since at least the third century BC, when the game was used as a military exercise in China, participants played fast and loose with the rules throughout the millennia. In the British Isles, rumor has it that in some towns the head of a vanquished foe was used as a ball. The game flourished as "mob football" in medieval times, where, according to FIFA, the number of players was unlimited and only murder and manslaughter were against the rules. The game was banned in Manchester in 1608, after too many windows were smashed.

A turning point occurred in the 1800s, when British schools brought football into the curriculum, but the rules differed from one institution to another. Some schools, like Rugby, allowed touching the ball with hands. Others, such as Eton, preferred kicking only. Regardless of such disparities in interpretation, tripping and shin-kicking were the norm. It was in this environment that football clubs were established, and in 1859 the Sheffield Foot-Ball Club set down a set of standards that survives as the earliest record of club football rules. The Sheffield club’s rulebook advocated a game played with the feet, and it includes many of the elements of modern-day soccer, such as the free kick, throw-in, and goal kick, with a ban on "hacking or tripping." The only known original copy of that rulebook—a part of the Sheffield club’s archives—sold for £881,250 (about $1.4 million) at a Sotheby’s London auction in July. Also included in the lot was the original handwritten draft from 1858.

$267,700
Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony represents the composer’s hymn to the natural world and, at 90 to 100 minutes in length, it is the longest symphony in the standard orchestral repertoire. Mahler’s first edition copy of his Third Symphony, which sold for £163,250 (about $267,700) at a Sotheby’s London Music, Continental and Russian Books and Manuscripts sale in June, provides a glimpse into the creative process of a notorious perfectionist.

The Austrian-born composer completed the symphony in 1896, during a creative spurt after the death of his parents and brother. Although an accomplished composer, Mahler was more renowned as a conductor, and the following year he was appointed the musical director at Vienna Court Opera, though he had to convert from Judaism to Catholicism to land the coveted position. It wasn’t until decades after his death that his complex compositions began to gain favor with audiences.

The third symphony’s score, which required large complements of all instruments, as well as women’s and boys’ choirs, was published in 1902 shortly before Mahler conducted its first complete performance. He wrote much of the piece while vacationing at his lakeside cottage in Austria, and as is the case in nature, itself, there is much intricacy in his copy of the score. The pages contain evidence of extensive reworking, with successive stages of revisions and performance notes revealed in layers of red ink and brown and blue crayon. But for as much as Mahler was a perfectionist, anecdotes exist that paint him to be quite boastful, as well. As he welcomed one summer visitor to his cottage after finishing the symphony, Mahler reportedly declared, "Don’t bother looking at the view. I have already composed it."