Stuart Pivar’s platinum flute

Stuart Pivar’s platinum flute is remembered not simply as an expensive instrument but as the center of a conspicuous auction drama. On October 18, 1986, Pivar bought it at Christie’s for $170,000, a figure that rose to about $200,000 with tax and commission. The purchase stunned him, was initially attributed by onlookers to Andy Warhol, and soon put the flute on the front page of USA Today without Pivar’s name. In the diary, the instrument’s record price, its reported history, and the confusion surrounding its buyer converge: ownership became public spectacle even as the person who had paid for it struggled to respond.

The Flute and Its Reported History

The platinum flute was one of several instruments that entered the day’s auction conversation. Pivar had called because he was interested in the platinum flute and wanted Warhol to take an interest in the gold one. Warhol went to look at them with Pivar and Sam. The gold instrument, Warhol thought, would have made a good necklace; the silver flute sold for $4,400. Those neighboring objects establish the setting for the platinum flute’s extraordinary price: the room was handling several flutes, but this one would turn an ordinary auction comparison into a record-breaking purchase.

The platinum flute carried a story of its own. As Warhol recounted it, a man had left the instrument to his mistress in his will. After the man died, his family could not believe he had had a mistress, and the flute was held up for ten years. Warhol identified it as American. The account links the object to a concealed relationship and a family’s disbelief, but the diary offers it as the flute’s history, not as independently verified provenance. Its past thus arrived at the sale as a narrative attached to the object, while the bidding supplied a new and far more immediate public story.

The Auction and the Price

The platinum flute had been estimated at $40,000. Pivar decided he would not bid above $120,000, but as the bidding climbed he kept his paddle raised. Warhol could feel Pivar’s body shaking beside him, and described the tremor as resembling an orgasm. Pivar was also panicked to discover who else was bidding. They looked around without identifying the source of the competing bids; when the sale ended, the flute had gone to Pivar for $170,000. With tax and commission, the total came to approximately $200,000—well beyond both the estimate and the limit he had set for himself.

The diary emphasizes the gap between Pivar’s intended ceiling and the final cost without explaining why he continued bidding past it. What it records instead is the physical intensity of the moment: the raised paddle, the shaking body, the search for the other bidder, and the shock after the purchase. Pivar was, in Warhol’s words, “Just in shock.” The object’s value in this scene is made concrete by the escalating bids, but the account’s attention to Pivar’s visible reaction gives the price a human measure as well: the winning bid left its buyer momentarily unable to speak.

Mistaken Identity and Publicity

People at the auction assumed Warhol had bought the flute. They rushed over to give him their cards and copies of Flutist magazine, turning a mistaken attribution into an instant encounter with the object’s publicity. Reporters then asked why he wanted it. Warhol offered different comic explanations to different reporters: its World’s Fair emblem would suit his collection of plastic knives and forks, he said to some; to others, he claimed he intended to melt it down. These answers redirected attention from the actual buyer and made the misunderstanding part of the scene.

Pivar could not bring himself to tell the reporters that the flute was his. Still shaking, he remained silent while Warhol pulled him out of the auction. The other bidder eventually proved to be a man from New Hampshire whom Warhol thought looked rich. Warhol suggested that Pivar invite him to one of his musical soirées and try to sell him something. That suggestion recast the anonymous competition as a possible future business connection, even as the flute itself had already been secured at an immense cost.

After the Sale

The flute’s price continued to occupy Pivar after the auction. He was still in a daze the following day. Warhol then recorded a second, distinct consequence: the flute appeared on the front page of USA Today, under the headline “Record Price Paid for Flute,” but the report did not identify Pivar. The instrument had acquired national visibility while its owner remained unnamed, extending the auction’s mistaken attribution into the newspaper coverage.

Warhol connected this episode to Pivar’s broader response to publicity. Pivar, he observed, acted as though he did not want attention but seemed crushed when he did not receive it. Warhol compared that contradiction with Pivar’s excitement about a story Steve Aronson had written, despite Pivar’s pretense of indifference. The diary does not say that Pivar arranged the flute’s coverage or that the newspaper omission was deliberate. Instead, it holds together the public record and the private reaction: a record price made the instrument news, but the buyer’s name was absent, leaving the flute more famous than its owner.