Someone Just Paid $30K For Donald Trump's Hilariously Bad Sketch Of The NYC Skyline

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Just half a year into his presidency, Donald Trump's "art" is already pulling in five figures. A hilariously bad sketch of the Manhattan skyline that Trump drew onto the back of an envelope in 2005 was auctioned off Thursday night in West Los Angeles to a mystery bidder for just shy of $30,000, according to the Nate D. Sanders auction house.

Bidding started at $9,000 and ended at $29,184, after a heated run of 11 bids, auctioneers said.

“It’s a piece of art from a U.S. President, so it’s attracted interest from not just Trump followers, but also presidential memorabilia collectors,” a spokesman for the auction house told Artnet News. “It’s received a lot of global press, so the interest level has been high. The piece has received some five times more than our normal auction traffic."

Trump originally created the piece in September 2005 as one of seven "one-of-a-kind celebrity-designed envelopes" auctioned off on eBay by a Connecticut charity "to support literacy." (Alongside works from Charlize Theron, John McCain, Jeff Gordon and more.)

The president's "very rare" sketch was billed as a depiction of the New York City skyline, but — its artist being Donald Trump — it ended up as more of a portrait of the artist's own castle-like condo tower at 725 5th Avenue, which can be seen jutting forth from a homely sea of lesser rectangles.

Even the avenue itself, drawn as a squiggle in the foreground, looks more like a moat for Trump Tower than an essential urban artery for cars and shops and people and stuff.

And of course, at the bottom of the piece, Trump's final touch: his autograph in gold.

Standing at 664 feet, Trump Tower is in fact the 64th tallest building in New York City, according to the Washington Post.

This isn't the first time Trump has fudged a few proportions in favor of his NYC namesake. In 1979, as he was preparing to build Trump Tower, he reportedly asked the architect crafting the miniature model to cut the top off the nearby General Motors building so it didn't dwarf his tower.

So in this way, perhaps, the true five-figure value of the 2005 sketch is as a porthole into the ego-distorted reality of America's 45th president. Because if this is how Trump sees New York City — as a bunch of lame squares withering in the shadow of his own gaudy real-estate development — imagine how he sees the rest of the country, and the world.

Photo courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions