Alligator auctioned yesterday for over $500K

The widow must need some cash...Alligator was auctioned off yesterday:  https://www.bonhams.com/press_release/29554/

I learned about this because I follow a GD author by the name of Scott Allen on FB. He posted this commentary yesterday: 

This morning in Los Angeles, renowned auction house Bonhams will peddle a host of Jerry's personal artifacts, including his 44-piece EC Comics collection, some of his artwork, his Hawaiian shirt collection, and — the main item up for grabs — the Natural 1955 Fender Stratocaster "Alligator" guitar (a gift from Graham Nash) that Garcia debuted onstage with the Grateful Dead in May, 1971 and used live with the band until 1973.
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Alligator is the guitar that Jerry played on the monumental Europe '72 tour and the subsequent triple live album.
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And during the Dead's storied show in the Bronx (photo below), on August 26, 1971 at Gaelic Park.
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Why are his personal items up for sale, who is auctioning them, and how could anyone in possession of this collection possibly need cash ?
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This Bonhams' auction is another shameless exploitation of Jerry and what is left of his private world.
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Billed as "Bonhams' Alligator !: A San Francisco Rock Star’s Guitars, Art & More," there is an element of unseemliness to this auction that I find both repulsive and nauseating.
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A San Francisco rock star ?
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That's like describing Machiavelli, the original Renaissance man, as an Italian aristocrat.
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Bonhams, it should be noted, is a privately owned British auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of "fine art and antiques."
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The Jerry Garcia Estate — or, specifically, Deborah Koons, the estate's executor — is putting items such as Jerry's art, comic books, clothing, tchotchkes and Alligator on the auction block. Unlike all of Jerry's other guitars, there is no disputing, or legally contesting, who paid for, or owns, Alligator.
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Shouldn't his art, and personal belongings, remain with his family ? Or be donated to the Grateful Dead archive in the Special Collections Library at the University of California at Santa Cruz ?
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Shouldn't the EC comics go to his daughter, Trixie, as his will stipulated, and not a random hedge fund manager with cash to burn for now ?
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This is not Dan Pritzker, who paid $790,000 for Wolf in 2002, selling it for $1.9 million at a Brooklyn Bowl auction in May, 2017 to raise almost $4 million for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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As for the Alligator guitar, which Graham Nash purchased in 1970 for $250 in a Phoenix pawn shop and gave to Jerry that same year, Garcia placed the infamous dancing Alligator sticker (with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other) on the Strat in June, 1972, in effect naming it.
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Garcia played it regularly until May, 1973, last playing it in August, 1973. In May, 1973, he had received Wolf (the second six string built for him by revered luthier Doug Irwin), the guitar that sent Mr. Nash's kind gift, Alligator, to the bench.
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It's estimated Alligator will sell today for somewhere between $250,000 and a half-million bucks, which, in my opinion, means the selling price will be north of $500,000.
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Bonhams will be broadcasting the bidding live from Los Angeles beginning at 10:00 a.m. PST today. You can watch it by using this link:
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https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25922/live/
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In a bittersweet way, sinking money into Grateful Dead memorabilia has proven to be, over the past three-plus decades, a wiser investment than any option available on NASDAQ.
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— Scott
December 10, 2019