Oprah fans can buy a piece of TV queen’s show history

Oprah Winfrey is auctioning off the chairs her audience sat on in her long-running Harpo Studio TV set — the ones actually used by the lucky final audience members at the final “Oprah Winfrey Show” in River West on May 25, 2011. While the starting bids will begin at $25, it’s likely the 246 lots (mostly single seats, but a few are two and three-seat configurations) will end up going for quite a bit more money.

The good news: Winfrey will be donating the net proceeds to benefit her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation, supporting her school for girls in South Africa.

A commemorative plaque will be affixed to each seat, ensuring its value as a collectible.

The auction will commence online and is being run by ScreenBid at oprah.screenbid.com. The bidding will begin at 2 p.m. Thursday, and is scheduled to close at 5 p.m. Thursday, May 12.

The auction celebrates the fifth anniversary of the final telecast of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which was a Chicago-based television phenomenon for 25 years and the highest-rated talk show in TV history — reaching more than 40 million viewers weekly in the U.S. and in 150 countries around the world.