Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch Auction

On 4/10/2009 I had the opportunity to be one of the first people to go on a private tour to view the auction items that were retrieved from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. It seemed they took everything but the kitchen sink, but Julian (the head of the auction house), said this is only 10% of all of Michael's possessions. It was enough memorabilia to fill up a Robinson's Mays department store, which is where the auction is held. There was a huge castle taken from Michael's living room, a life-size Lego Darth Vader, a video game machine collection bigger than Dave & Busters, Michael's custom Rolls Royce limo, Gold and Platinum records, paintings of Michael, furniture, a 6 foot tall MTV Moon man, a 10 foot tall throne and Michael's costumes including the infamous "Glove". They are even selling the front gate to Neverland. The strangest thing I saw was life-like mannequins dressed as maids and butlers which held trays of cookies throughout the house. Some of the mannequins were dressed as regular people, one lady played piano and another had on a housecoat with rollers in her frazzled hair. There were over 100 such mannequins throughout his house. Their rubber skin felt real and they would definitely have creeped me out in the middle of the night. The auction is expected to bring in over 2 million dollars with the cheapest item being a butter churn valued at $40-60. Apparently Michael is unhappy about his items being sold and reportedly threatened, "There will be bloodshed" if he doesn't get his stuff back. However the judge ruled in favor of the auction house because Michael abandoned these items along with Neverland. So good luck with that Mike Jack! The auction is being held in Beverly Hills, CA across from the Beverly Hilton and will be open to the public next week.

UPDATE- Michael was able to stop the auction at the last minute...his items will still be on display for public viewing, but not sold.