The average price at last week's London auction fell to 77.7 cents a pound from $1.38 at the beginning of the year.

"I bought it at a London auction for $650,000."

For the first time that anyone can remember, the Soviet Union has been buying at the London auction.

But the turning point, he said, came in June when they laid out $2.2 million at a London auction for the Crucifixion, circa 1395.

The glass photographic plates were bought for £6,000 by an unnamed buyer at a London auction held in 2001.

The purchase, which was made March 30 at a London auction, also seemed appropriate for another reason.

It is not a London auction in which our task is to outbid each other.

Ms. Fox said the script is expected to sell for $3,200 to $5,600 at the London auction on Wednesday.

Then, three months ago, the museum acquired it at a London auction for $365,000.

The only moving images of the race turned up in a London auction in 2011.