'Cheers' bar sells for US$675,000 at Dallas auction of items from classic TV shows

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Dallas — The bar from the television series "Cheers" sold for US$675,000 at auction over the weekend, garnering the highest bid among the nearly 1,000 props, costumes and sets from classic TV shows offered up from a collection amassed by one man over more than three decades.

Heritage Auctions said that the items sold during its three-day event that wrapped up Sunday in Dallas brought in over $5 million. James Comisar has said that after his dream of creating a museum to house his collection failed to come together, it was time for the pieces to go to fans to enjoy.

"The auction's success confirmed what I have always known: that television characters are cherished members of our extended family and that their stories and our own are inseparable," Comisar said in a news release from the auction house.

The Batman and Robin costumes worn by Adam West and Burt Ward in the 1960s television series went for $615,000, while the set where Johnny Carson hosted guests on "The Tonight Show" went for US$275,000, Heritage Auctions said

The set from "All in the Family" -- which included Archie and Edith Bunker's living and dining rooms and stairwell -- sold for $125,000, and the auction house said the same buyer also made the winning bid of $250,000 for the chairs used by the TV couple in the show's ninth season.

The couple's original two chairs from the show reside in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Comisar said that those thrift shop chairs were given to the museum when it was thought that the show would end after its eighth season, but when it continued for a ninth, replicas were made at great cost. Those replicas -- which were the chairs offered at auction -- were then used in the show's last season and in its continuation, "Archie Bunker's Place."