RBG fashion collar highlights children’s charity auction

In addition to the collar, items to be auctioned include a pair of Ginsburg’s opera glasses, a wooden nail and artwork that hung in her Washington apartment.

There are also strange items. Her son, James, said in an interview that when talking about the collection “it’s hard not to mention the cake ball. The fondant sculpture was commissioned by friends for one of the justice’s birthdays and depicts him standing in a court robe with his arms outstretched on the bow of a battleship called “The Notorious RBG”, the justice’s nickname. Ginsburg said it reminded him a little of a scene from the movie “Titanic.”

The auction also includes other Ginsburg fashion pieces: a white handbag, a scarf, scarves and two sets of fishnet lace gloves. She began wearing gloves in the late 1990s after undergoing treatment for colon cancer. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Supreme Court’s first female justice, suggested them as a way to prevent illness while shaking hands, but Ginsburg liked the gloves so much that she continued to wear them.

This is a carousel. Use the Next and Previous buttons to navigate

But it was Ginsburg’s collars — which she wore to the bench as an accessory to her black robe — that were her most visible fashion item. She had dozens, her son and daughter-in-law said. The family donated several to the Smithsonian, including a sparkly black one she wore to the bench when she didn’t object on one occasion. Speaking at an event in 2020, Ginsburg – who became a pop culture figure in later years – said that at the time she received a collar “at least once a week” from fans around the world.

The auction was originally planned to include two Ginsburg collars. The other, made of cloth, was a gift from her law clerks. Sewn inside is a family motto: “It’s not sacrifice, it’s family.” But the family said in a statement on Tuesday that they had decided to keep the collar and loan it permanently to “an appropriate facility where it can be displayed for all to see”. The family has not released additional details.

The auction is the third this year of items owned by Justice, and her son said it will be the last. In April, about 150 items — including Ginsburg art displayed in her home and office — raised more than $800,000 for the Washington National Opera, one of the late justice’s passions.

Bonhams, which is conducting the latest auction, estimated that the current set of objects sold for a total of just under $50,000. However, in January, an online auction of her books also conducted by Bonhams fetched $2.3 million, almost 30 times the pre-sale estimate.

Bonhams said it expects the collar to sell for $3,000 to $5,000. However, at the previous book auction, a copy of the Harvard Law Review from 1957-58 with Ginsburg’s notes sold for more than $100,000, shattering Bonhams’ estimate of $2,500 to $3,500.

Proceeds from the current sale will fund a fund in Ginsburg’s honor, benefiting SOS Children’s Villages, an organization that supports vulnerable children around the world. Ginsburg’s daughter-in-law, Patrice Michaels, is on the organization’s advisory board. Michaels, a songwriter and singer, said the jack that is being auctioned is one that Ginsburg gave her to use during a performance of a composition she had written about Ginsburg’s dissent. The gold beaded collar was also her pick from Ginsburg’s collection.

“I thought it was literally so beautiful,” Michaels said. “Her aesthetic and the feeling of being as elegant as my mother-in-law really appealed to me.”