With the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination looming, history buffs and collectors can find an assortment of rare relics from the Camelot era available for bidding.
Heritage Auctions, in an event running Monday and Tuesday, will offer an assortment of historic items from the Kennedy administration, including a photo of the president and wife Jaqueline Kennedy inside their limousine after landing at Love Field on the fateful day of Nov. 22, 1963. Other lots feature JFK cufflinks and a wristwatch, along with a business card once belonging to the then-Senator from Massachusetts.
“He was a young guy, a World War II hero,” said Curtis Lindner, director of Americana for Heritage, in explaining the ongoing interest in Kennedy memorabilia in a new millennium.
“They made a movie about him. Plus he was so young, two young children and a beautiful wife. It was unimaginable this could happen in our country in 1963. Such a vibrant young man, it really shocked the nation.”
The president was assassinated while riding in a Dallas motorcade with wife Jackie less than three years after his inauguration, a shocking execution that spawned endless conspiracy theories and director Oliver Stone’s film “JFK.”
“There’s still an aura about the Kennedys,” said Lindner. “They still hold a big interest in our country.”
Among the rarities are a pair of Kennedy cuff links with the presidential seal, given by Kennedy to a White House maid, plus a satchel with the initials “J.F.K.” stamped in gold beneath its handle.
Bidding on the latter item was set to begin at $10,000 in the auction with a total of 700 items available, including a decades-old letter to Kennedy’s World War II shipmate John Edward Maguire from PT 109, the boat Kennedy commanded.
There’s also a telegram from the president to baseball Hall of Famer Stan Musial and the Omega wristwatch with a dark brown alligator band given to Kennedy as a gift by actor/comedian Jerry Lewis. Kennedy received the watch during a Washington, D.C., birthday and fundraising event, delivered as an anonymous package and later attributed to Lewis.
The other lots include a presidential automobile flag once owned by JFK’s special assistant David Powers, later the curator of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.
Jim Ferrigan of the Zaricon Flag Collection said the collectible was likely flying from the president’s limousine in Fort Worth, Texas, on the eve of the assassination. Ferrigan recalled he was an eighth-grade Catholic school student when word of the killing came while he was sitting in class, and said interest in the 35th president still remains high in the new millennium 60 years later.
“Kennedy is one of the names that draws what I like to call ‘auction wonderment,’” he said. “There’s Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and JFK.”
The available auction items also include an American flag recovered from the rubble of the South Tower after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, with bidding opening at $25,000.
