People often sell (or pawn) expensive items from past relationships, but old photographs and mementos are usually kept in a shoebox at the top of a closet.
But if your college ex goes on to become the richest man in the world, you might reconsider the value of your keepsakes.
That’s exactly what Jennifer Gwynne, a South Carolina-based inventory analyst at McKesson Brands — who happened to date Elon Musk in college — is doing through the auction house, RR Auction.
Gwynne told Entrepreneur that she’s “always been a big saver of sentimental things,” and last year, she saw that a former student of Musk’s had sold some homework he graded for $7,753.
“And, I’m like ‘I have something much sexier,'” she said.
Gwynne added that most of the money, besides a small donation to charity, will go to her stepson’s college fund.
One of the items shows the young Musk in a Judge Dredd superhero T-shirt at the University of Pennsylvania’s Quadrangle dorm, according to the listing.
Courtesy: Jennifer Gwynne // RR Auction
Bobby Livingston, executive VP at RR Auction, told Entrepreneur that Musk is “probably one of the 21st century’s most important people.”
“There’s not a lot of Elon Musk material that comes to auction, so due to his importance, there’s a ton of interest in this auction,” Livingston said.
In the photo’s description says the duo “began dating in the fall semester of the 1994-1995 school year when they both lived and worked as Resident Advisors (RAs) in the ‘Spruce Street’ part of the University of Pennsylvania’s Quadrangle dorm.”
So far, that photo is going for $636 (at press time) with 14 bids. You can put bids in until September 14.
However, there are a host of other photos for the Musk-obsessed, like him hanging out with a friend and Gwynne (at press time $350), looking zany in a dorm room ($630), or spiffed out in a tux for a college formal ($417).
Courtesy: Jennifer Gwynne // RR Auction
One of the highest photo bids so far is a 1994 photo of Musk at a computer, which at press time was going for $1,641.
Gwynne wrote she took the photo during “serious schoolwork time.”
“Elon talked about electric cars being the way of the future back in 1994,” she said in the listing. “So, honestly, for the last 25 years, I knew Tesla was going to work, that it was going to be successful. There is something so very infectious about Elon’s confidence and clarity,” she added.
Courtesy: Jennifer Gwynne // RR Auction
But that’s all topped by interest in an emerald necklace, as CNN noted.
According to the listing, Gwynne said that Musk gave her the necklace when they went to visit Elon’s mother in Toronto in 1994 during Christmas break: “Elon gave me both the small ‘love, love, love’ note and the necklace. His mom had a number of these necklaces in a case in her bedroom and Elon told me they were from his father’s emerald mine in South Africa—he pulled one from the case.”
Courtesy: Jennifer Gwynne // RR Auction
As of Monday morning, the bidding is at $5,999. Musk has denied his father, Errol Musk, owned an emerald mine.
Musk is now worth $262 billion and is the richest person in the world, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
RR Auction also recently sold off high-profile business memorabilia from Steve Jobs.
