Inside Sotheby’s $6 million sale of a banana

New York: In the Sotheby s Auction House sale room an intimate, carpeted seventh floor auditorium on the Upper East Side it s not uncommon to see...

New York: In the Sotheby’s Auction House sale room - an intimate, carpeted seventh-floor auditorium on the Upper East Side - it’s not uncommon to see standing-room-only attendance. Or for the bidding crowd to crane their necks around one another to get a glimpse of what’s spotlighted against the richly blue wall at the front.

But on Wednesday night, the typical low-volume chatter was punctuated by something unusual. One phrase kept leaping out of murmured conversations all over the room:

"The banana … ?”

" … the banana!”

Occasionally, in a British accent: "The ba-na.”