re: Does anyone want to buy the original bar from Cheers?

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The original chairs were acquired by the production from a Southern California secondhand furniture store for reportedly less than $20 for use in the show's pilot episode. They went on to star in eight seasons, and after the final episode of Season 8, believing it to be the show's last, they were donated to The Smithsonian Institution on September 18, 1978. However, in the weeks that followed, the network would order another season of the show, but the original chairs could not be reclaimed from the national collection, so a second set were specially designed and fabricated for the final season. A mill was found in England that produced custom textiles and fabrics were handmade to match the chairs' original fabric, then laboriously distressed with a wire brush and other tools to simulate the original aged chairs. The cost of producing the second set of chairs exceeded $15,000 in 1978, about half the median price of a 3-bedroom house at the time. Accompanied by Archie's original three-legged living room beer can table of dark wood with a half-circle top that sat between Archie and Edith's living room chairs. Like the chairs, it was the second of two such accent tables that held Archie's beer cans and beloved TV remote control during the long run of the series, and then the popular spin-off series, Archie Bunker's Place, for five additional years, with many critically acclaimed episodes, including dealing with Edith's death. The historic ninth and final season of the series was especially poignant, tackling daughter Gloria moving to California with husband Mike and grandchild Joey, and their subsequent divorce. Also included is Archie's beloved living room RCA Victor television remote control featuring gold controls for "V" (volume) and "C" (channel) buttons and a brass-tone grill, often on his side table, at the ready, to drown out opposing, logical points of views, as well as his amber-colored glass ashtray that sat atop Edith's knitted lace doily. Since only two sets of the living room furniture were utilized in the production of the 1970s series, and one set will forever be celebrated within the national collection, these are the only Archie & Edith Bunker chairs & table known to exist for private collection

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DALLAS, Texas (May 1, 2023) — It began simply enough in 1989, with two hand-painted title cards from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that appeared before commercial breaks and promised "More to Come." These were the first of more than 10,000 artifacts James Comisar acquired over more than three decades of collecting and conserving, restoring and protecting television history. More to come. No kidding. Comisar spent decades and millions of dollars gathering decades' worth of sets, props and costumes spanning the medium's birth to its Golden Age to the era of Peak TV — from Howdy Doody to Gunsmoke, I Love Lucy to Star Trek, Bewitched to I Dream of Jeannie, The Office to ER, Moonlighting to Mad Men, All in the Family to Breaking Bad. He assembled enough material to fill the television history museum he long dreamed of opening.

But after decades of trying to establish that museum to no avail, Comisar came to a difficult decision: If these TV treasures couldn't find an exhibition space where others could experience them, the time had come to part with a momentous portion of his renowned collection.

On June 2-4 Heritage Auctions will offer nearly 1,000 pieces from The Comisar Collection, most of which have never before been to auction. Among its voluminous highlights: The Tonight Show set from which Johnny Carson kept a nation awake and entertained until his 1992 farewell. The desk and New York City skyline where David Letterman became every college student's Late Night fixture during his NBC tenure. Archie and Edith Bunker's Queens living room from All in the Family, including the two most famous chairs in sitcom history. And the bar around which the Cheers regulars congregated.

"After 30 years of saving and sacrificing to acquire and protect this collection, then meeting with studio heads, network presidents, theme parks and different cities across the country, I have come to accept that I won't be able to establish the museum for TV fans I always dreamed of," Comisar says. "I am extremely proud to have done my part in assembling and safeguarding this collection. Now, it's up to others to take over this cultural mission."

The remarkable list of props, sets and costumes available here honor the must-see TV of every era and genre. Other touchstone objects in the sale include Superman's woolen uniform tunic and molded muscles from The Adventures of Superman; Captain James T. Kirk's command-gold top and the Grecian tunic worn when he and Lieutenant Uhura shared TV's first interracial kiss on Star Trek; Barbara Eden's pink-chiffon costume from I Dream of Jeannie; U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon's badge and boots from Gunsmoke; and the signpost featuring the hometowns of the doctors and soldiers who staffed the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital on M*A*S*H.

Treasures from The Comisar Collection span yesterday's hits all the way through the series that reinvigorated television in the satellite and streaming age. In the climate-, humidity- and light-controlled warehouses built specifically for art and historic works, Comisar stored the ensembles worn by Tony Soprano and his crew when Christopher Moltisanti became a "made" man; the tools used by Walter White and Jesse Pinkman to cook Breaking Bad's blue meth; the midcentury barware Don Draper, Roger Sterling and the other Mad Men used to mix their cocktails; and serial killer Dexter Morgan's kill table.

This auction offers the most complete history of television ever available in a single place.

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