We’ve donated some products to Worldbuilders again this year. Two of particular note.
You can view all their auctions here. But the two most of you will be interested in are here:
Longclaw Damascus Artist Proof
So, every time we make a product, we also need to make some for HBO to give to VIPs. GRRM gets at least one of everything, and while HBO doesn’t share their VIP list with us, I can only imagine that the showrunners, maybe the president of the network, directors, costume designers, and actors get these. In these cases, we made 18 extra of each damascus sword, but HBO didn’t need all 18, and they kindly let us sell or otherwise dispose of the extra. We previously auctioned a set of the two swords above and together they went for around $3500 as I recall, this time we’ve donated a set to Worldbuilders, but they’ve chosen to auction them separately.
So, what you have, is essentially an edition of 18, where most of those 18 are going to VIPs, making these highly collectible.
So bid like you’re voting in Chicago, early and often. Worldbuilders is a great charity, sort of a meta charity, because what they do is raise money for another charity, Heifer International, which is a great “teach a man to fish” sort of charity. Where rather than doing things like providing food aid to poor subsistence farmers in developing countries, they instead provide livestock and education so that the family can learn to use their livestock to provide for themselves, and the first baby their livestock has is given back to Heifer to give to a new family making it a bit viral. It is almost like a grant to a poor subsistence farmer to increase his production so in the future he will not need grants, the best form of charity, it helps people help themselves.
PS: My understanding is eBay isn’t giving kind international shipping quotes for these auctions. If you’re international and interested in bidding contacting them for an exact quote might be worthwhile. I wouldn’t trust the ebay shipping quotes, they’re much higher than they need to be.