On December 14, 2012, Sotheby’s auctioned a piano played in the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman, film, Casablanca for $500,000.  Factoring Sotheby’s buyers premium, the total paid for the instrument was $602,500.  The piano was played by actor, Dooley Wilson, as Sam, in the Paris flashback scene while Sam sings “As Time Goes By,” Rick (Bogart) and Ilsa (Bergman) lean on the piano and drink champagne. During this scene Bogart says the famous line: “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

The piano had originally been discovered  by Dr Gary Milan, who bought the piano from a prop house in 1983. Milan sold the piano at a Sotheby’s auction in 1988 for $154,000 to a collector who consigned the piano for this auction. Milan also purchased the film’s other famous piano from Rick’s Cafe  in 83. He loaned the piano to the Warner Brothers museum in California where it resides today.

The piano was not part of an auction collection per se, and was listed on Sotheby’s website as follows: Sale: N08877, Session: 14 Dec 2012 11:30 AM, Lot 1