• A rare 8.5-foot segment of the Eiffel Tower’s original spiral staircase will be auctioned by Artcurial on May 21.
• Removed in 1983 and split into 24 parts, the historic staircase pieces are now globally dispersed.
• The restored segment, still in private French hands, could realize more than $50,000.

Francophiles have a chance to snap up a rare piece of Parisian history on May 21, when French auction house Artcurial sells off an 8.5-foot chunk of the Eiffel Tower’s original, vertiginous spiral staircase.

This segment dates all the way back to the Eiffel Tower’s original construction in the late 1880s, ahead of the 1889 World’s Fair. It’s one of the last 8.5-foot tall chunks of the tower’s stairs still in private French hands—and could fetch €40,000–€50,000 ($46,300–$57,900).

French engineer Gustave Eiffel built his namesake monument with three main floors—the top-most one housing his private office—that, in an era before elevators, were joined by spiral staircases. The stairs connecting the ground level with the tower’s second story have since been modified for enhanced safety and comfort. The stairs connecting the second and third floors, however, were taken out and replaced with modern elevators in 1983.

That’s when French officials chopped the 525-foot spiral staircase up into 24 parts. One 14-foot bit is immortalized on the Eiffel Tower’s first floor. Three more were given to French institutions—the Musée d’Orsay and La Villette in Paris, and the Iron Museum in Jarville-la-Malgrange. The remaining 20 pieces hit the block together in the French capital on December 1, 1983.

Visitors at a spiral staircase near the top of the Eiffel Tower during the 1889 Paris Exposition. Photo: Library of Congress / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images.

The section on offer at Artcurial was actually lot number one in that historic sale. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean these were the lost staircase’s lowest steps. “One thing’s for sure,” Artcurial’s Art Deco specialist Sabrina Dolla told me over email, “it took some courage to be the first to make that purchase, knowing there were 19 others to follow!”

Now, those 20 chunks of the Eiffel Tower stairs are scattered throughout the world. One particularly large piece popped up in Pennsylvania two years ago. One lives at Disneyland and another amid the gardens of Japan’s Yoishii Foundation, created by late art dealer Chozo Yoshii.

This latest lot will mark the fifth chunk of Eiffel Tower stairs that Artcurial has sold since 2013. The single-lot live sale’s anonymous consignor bought his bit from that original auction, four decades ago. “He’s enjoyed it long enough,” Dolla said, “and now his circumstances are taking him elsewhere.”

The spiral staircase section that Arcurial will sell this spring. Photo courtesy of Artcurial

Demand for these stairs has varied while holding steady. In 2013, Artcurial sold an 11.5-foot tall, 19-step segment for €212,458 ($246,335). Three years later, the house sold another 8.5-foot piece for €523,800 ($607,320) after an intense bidding war, establishing the current record for most expensive Eiffel Tower stairs ever sold. In 2018, a 14-foot tall, 25-step section earned €162,500 ($188,410). In 2020, another 8.5-foot section commanded €253,500 ($293,920).

Smaller sections like the one hitting the block in May do better at auction, Dolla said, because they fit inside most spaces—and elegantly encapsulate one single spiral. The workshop responsible for maintaining the Eiffel Tower has restored this bit of its old staircase ahead of the auction, repainting it brown to honor the staircase’s hue the day it was removed.