Forget the standard Eiffel Tower key chain souvenir, you could take home an actual part of the Eiffel Tower instead!
A section of the building’s famous staircase is about to be auctioned off – but if you want it, you better hurry, it is set to be auctioned today!
The 25-step, 4-meter spiral staircase was part of the original stairway when the Eiffel Tower opened in 1889. The stairs are part of a private Canadian collection when the legendary French engineer Gustave Eiffel built the 324-meter tower as the centrepiece of the Paris Universal Exhibition. The stairs were removed from the tower in 1983 to make way for an elevator and cut into 24 sections, ranging from two to nine meters high.
Just be warned, if you’re thinking about grabbing a slice of this Parisian icon for yourself, you’ll need to have a lot of spare cash. French auction house Artcurial estimates the piece is worth $40,000-$60,000.
So, if you are in Paris and want to take a look at what you can purchase, the steps to be auctioned off are currently installed in Artcurial’s courtyard at the Rond-pont des Champs-Elysées for public exhibition.
This is the third time Artcurial will present a slice of the Eiffel Tower at auction. In 2013, an original section measuring 3.5 meters went for €220,000 ($249,000). In 2016 another section went for €523,800 ($593,000). I have to admit, if I had unlimited money, I would love to buy these stairs and have them on display in my home!
UPDATE: As I was just finishing this blog post, the staircase sold in auction to a Middle East collector for 169,000 euros ($190,000) after a bidding-war in the French capital.
Glimpse Creations 
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