BILLIONAIRE GADGET OF THE DAY: James Bond's Actual Rolex Watch Hits The Auction Block

If you want to look as cool as James Bond, here's your chance to stock up on one of coolest his accessories (via Hodinkee).

The Rolex Rodger Moore wore in "Live and Let Die" is up for auction through Christie's in Geneva next month.

It's expected to sell for between $230,000 amd $450,000.

In the movie the watch, a Rolex Reference 5513 has been tweaked by Q to include a buzzsaw bezel, which Bond uses to free himself and Solitaire (played by Jane Seymour) and the watch has a "hyper intensified magnetic field generator" that was used to stop a bullet.

The buzzsaw bezel is still in place on this watch. The caseback is also signed "Roger Moore 007." There's a small pinhole where there was once a thin wire installed to help unzip Miss Smith's dress during filming. 

The watch itself was produced by Rolex in 1972 and still has its original bracelet.

Bond, of course, was also known for sporting a tuxedo.

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This Roy Lichtenstein Painting Could Fetch A Record Breaking $45 Million At Auction

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Image: via Christie's

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's I Can See the Whole Room!...and There's Nobody in It! is expected to sell for a whopping $35 to $45 million at a Christie's auction in New York next month.

The painting, a comic book-style work that depicts a man looking through a peephole, first set a record when it sold at a 1988 Christie's sale for $2.09 million. It was expected to go for between $800,000 and $1.2 million.

The 1961 work is also poised to break the current record for the most expensive Lichtenstein work ever sold at auction. The current titleholder is “Ohhh ... Alright ...,” which sold for $42.6 million at last year's pop art sale.

I Can See the Whole Room!...is the highlight of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary sale, scheduled for November 8.

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HOUSE OF THE DAY: A $40 Million Château In The Chicago Suburbs Is About To Hit The Auction Block

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Le Grand Rêve, a mansion in the  Chicago is about to hit the auction block.

This  27,000-square-foot palace sits on two acres and reportedly cost $40 million to build (via Curbed). 

The lake-front property was previously listed at $32 million, but was on the market for two years and the owners chopped the price to $23 million. With no prospective buyers in sight, the house is now up for auction.

The decadent estate has six bedrooms, five full bathrooms and three half baths.

Concierge Auctions is putting the house on the auction block Oct. 29.

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Actually That High Stakes Italian Bond Auction Went Pretty Well

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An auction of $11.2 billion in Italian bonds went off without a hitch this morning, with yields on 10-year government bonds remaining at a respectable 5.22%.

The auction was under heavy scrutiny from investors as it was widely regarded to be a test of the European Central Bank's bond-buying firepower.

Nonetheless European markets turned negative around the time of the auction.

Yields on 10-year Italian government bonds fell from a record 6.40% earlier this month after the ECB started buying up Italian and Spanish government bonds. Bond yields have remained generally under control since then.

The ECB is not permitted to purchase bonds directly from governments, so this morning's auction proved that ECB secondary market intervention was still having a strong impact on bond prices. Reuters reports that the ECB was seen purchasing a significant quantity of Italian bonds nearing maturity.

Shahid Ikram -- head of sovereigns at Aviva Investors -- told Bloomberg, "This is where the litmus test comes, the test to see whether the ECB’s buying power can hold yields where they are."

Despite the success of the sale, the FTSE MIB had fallen more than 1% by 6:15 AM ET, with Italian 10-year bonds to bunds spreads rising to 298bps.

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