Late one night two years ago, over a glass of good red wine, a chum named Vadim

Zlotnikov declared, in an offhand way, that a new company called ebay would one

day own Sotheby's. I thought that was quite a silly overstatement for a respectable

fund manager like Vadim to make. Some slap-dash start-up buying a 225-year old

auction house like Sotheby's! Ha! Right! Why, they're older than Barings Bank!

Well, this week, 1) ebay announced its attention to do just that, and 2) I

recieved the first (and so far only) item that I have bid for and won on that

service: a dozen Queen's Park Ranger soccer programs from matches as early

as 1953 and as late as 1970. Knowing little more than the next Yankee

about what the Rangers were up to between the Coronation of Queen

Elizabeth and the release of Abbey Road, I ferreted out the story from

the Editor's page, Our Reader's Write, and the Manager's Corner.

 {Forward to 2 of 9}