Rare Feather Tickles a Collector’s Fancy, Selling for Record $46,500

A single feather from a huia—an extinct New Zealand bird with highly prized plumage—has sold for $46,521 (US$28,365), making it the most expensive feather ever sold at auction. Since it weighs approximately 9 grams, that works out to $5,169 per gram compared to $127 for a similar weight of gold. Until the hammer fell at Webb’s auction house in Auckland this week, the previous highest price for a huia feather had been set in 2010, when one sold for $8,400. It was estimated this one would fetch between $2,000 and $3,000. Last year, a pair of stuffed huia sold at auction in Britain for $466,000, despite public pleas for the government to intervene and return them to New Zealand....