USA/FILE: New York Auction house previews collection of JFK memorabilia ahead of auction commemorating the 50th anniversary of his assassination

Record ID: 643268

  • Title: USA/FILE: New York Auction house previews collection of JFK memorabilia ahead of auction commemorating the 50th anniversary of his assassination
  • Date: 17th October 2013
  • Summary: STILL PHOTOGRAPH OF KENNEDY SITTING IN OVAL OFFICE WITH FLAGS IN BACKGROUND
  • Embargoed: 1st November 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Business,History,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA413LLE6U1L9KLMHD5O5QAU57R
  • Story Text: Some of President John F. Kennedy's memorabilia scheduled to hit the auction block in November were on preview in New York on Thursday (October 17).
    The 110 lots of the upcoming sale come from the private collection of Dr. Dean William Rudoy, an avid JFK memorabilia collector, and are offered by Heritage Auctions.
    Rudoy who volunteered for JFK's campaign as an 11-year-old boy in 1960, amassed his huge collection over the course of five decades.
    According to the Heritage, Rudoy felt that with the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination nearing the time has come to make his collection available to the next generation of collectors.
    Greg Rohan of Heritage Auctions said that he expects the sale to be a hit.
    "I think that the assassination of President Kennedy was one of those events in history that everybody remembers where they were if they were alive then. It's like 9/11, those were history changing events. And these items are so closely associated with President Kennedy that they have really world wide appeal to collectors and historians of every different walk," he explained to Reuters.
    A rocking chair that was frequently used by Kennedy is one of the top lots of the sale with a starting price of $50,000 (USD). It reveals personal details about the president who is said to have suffered from severe chronic back pain.
    "There was a back brace that he wore and if you look at the chair closely, in the middle of the chair about where his back brace would be the cushion is faded and dented where his back brace leaned up against it," Rohan said.
    "He spent an awful lot of time in that chair, and that chair spent an awful lot of time in the Oval Office," he added.
    Another top lot, a pair of flags that stood in the White House Oval Office is expected to fetch at least $ 100,000. The American flag stood to Kennedy's right and the Presidential flag to his left.
    But a silver calendar made by Tiffany's is Rohan's favorite lot.
    "It was commissioned by President Kennedy to Tiffany and Company who made these silver calendars in a beautiful box and he gave them to his trusted, most important advisors who helped him on the Cuban Missile Crisis," Rohan said.
    "It's an immensely historic item and very few of them were of course made."
    The auction will take place in Dallas, Texas on November 23, one day after the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's death. Heritage estimates that the sale will conservatively bring in $500,000.
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