A 1934 Duesenberg Model J wearing a rare close-coupled convertible berline body by the Walter M. Murphy Company brought $1,022,500 when it crossed the block as Lot 389 at RM Sotheby’s Hershey sale in Pennsylvania in October. The price landed inside the presale estimate and put the car at the top of the auction.
For a Duesenberg that its own sale catalog describes as having gone unseen for years, the result marked a return to the open market after two decades with one owner.
The RM Sotheby’s lot page lists the car as sold for $1,022,500 and records chassis No. 2434, engine No. J-416 and firewall No. 2434, offered on a U.S. title. The Hershey sale ran Oct. 7–8, 2026, at the Hershey Lodge as the official auction of the AACA National Fall Meet, according to The Shop Magazine’s preview of the sale, which also reported RM Sotheby’s estimate for the car of $900,000 to $1,200,000.
Top of a 170-car sale
No other car at Hershey matched it. Motor Illustrated’s Oct. 10 rundown of the most expensive car from each decade at the sale, written by Anthony Lemonde, called the Duesenberg “the benchmark transaction for the 1930s decade, and the entire auction,” and said RM Sotheby’s offered 170 vehicles.
The gap to the rest of the field was wide. The same Motor Illustrated gallery listed the 1950s leader, a 1956 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car, at $494,500, and the 1910s leader, a 1915 Mercedes 28/60 HP town car and tourer display chassis, at $324,000. The Duesenberg brought more than twice the Cadillac’s figure.
A rare body on a Model J chassis
The body came from Pasadena. “The Walter M. Murphy Company of Pasadena, California, was one of the great names in Classic Era coachbuilding,” the RM Sotheby’s catalog says.
What sets this car apart is the body style. The convertible berline is a large open car with close-coupled proportions, and RM Sotheby’s wrote that “only about five convertible berlines built to the design remain in existence today.” The lot’s highlights also note streamlined styling with a raked windshield, and the car is recognized as a Full Classic by the Classic Car Club of America.
The catalog dates the car’s delivery to “13 August 1933 to its original owner, William Boal Wood of Piqua, Ohio.” The auction house lists the car as a 1934 Model J.
A long line of collectors
The car’s paper trail runs through some well-known names in the Duesenberg world. The RM Sotheby’s listing says it was acquired at one point “by steel manufacturer and early enthusiast Charles Markle Knipe.” It also names “longtime Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Co-Chairman Lorin Tryon” among its owners.
Collector Jack Finden of Topeka, Kansas, bought the car in the late 1970s, the catalog says. The seller, in turn, acquired it in 2005 from Dr. Greg Mieckowski of Pennsylvania, and held it for about two decades before consigning it to Hershey.
Those years were quiet ones. RM Sotheby’s described the Duesenberg as “not shown for many years and largely forgotten to the Duesenberg community,” and wrote that it was “mechanically recommissioned in preparation for sale.” The catalog pitched it as a car that could be driven as it stands or taken back for a full restoration.
What the price bought
The price did not buy a fresh concours restoration. It bought a Model J in one of the rarest body styles Murphy built, with a chain of owners the catalog traces back to 1933, and with chassis and firewall both numbered 2434 in the auction house’s listing. The car was offered from Hershey, Pennsylvania, according to the lot page.
RM Sotheby’s has not published the buyer’s name on the lot page, and the listing gives no restoration plan for the next owner. The $1,022,500 result is now part of the public record on the auction house’s site for chassis 2434.
Top image: A 1930 Duesenberg Model J with Murphy cabriolet berline coachwork at a car show; not the car sold at Hershey. Image Credit: Charles from Port Chester, New York — CC0 / Wikimedia Commons