NEW YORK.- Christie's auction house won the right to sell off the Tashi Hashiyama art collection through a game of 'scissors, paper, rock' against Sotheby’s. When the Japanese art collector was undecided about which auction house would hold this auction, he asked Christie’s and Sotheby’s to play a game of 'scissors, paper, rock', according to Christie’s executive Nicholas Maclean. The art collection features works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Cezanne.

Mr. MacLean stated, "The way in which collections are won sometimes rest on the tiniest little decision, and the owner of this collection could not decide between the two big houses. In Japan it is not uncommon that a decision will be made where this game will be played. When [Mr Hashiyama] mentioned this, we were not surprised. We've heard this before and we took it very seriously and we started researching."

The game was played by having representatives of each firm writing their choice on a piece of paper instead of playing in the traditional fashion with hands.

According to Mr. Maclean, Christie's decided to play 'scissors' - after doing some research.

Mr. MacLean stated, "A lady in Japan did her own research and she independently came with the idea that scissors should be the way we should go. I spoke to my own children and they also felt that that was the way - so between us we decided to go with scissors."