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Six decades after President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, dozens of artifacts from his presidency and assassination fetched tens of thousands of dollars at an auction.
The highest-selling item — a pair of blood-stained leather swatches from the limousine Kennedy was riding in when he was shot — sold for $46,865, according to RR Auction. The swatches were authenticated with a letter from F. Vaughn Ferguson, a technical service representative for the White House who maintained presidential limousine.
Four days after the assassination, Ferguson and the White House upholsterer removed this leather, Ferguson wrote in the letter. The light blue leather is from the center of the rear seat, and the dark blue leather is from the border of the rear seat.
“The spots on the leather are the dried blood of our beloved President, John F. Kennedy,” he wrote.
Boston-based RR Auction called the swatches from the 1961 Lincoln Continental X-100 a “poignant, historic reminder of that fateful November day.”
The Nov. 8 auction, which coincided with the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza, featured more than 70 photographs, letters, books and documents signed by both Kennedy and his wife, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
A large section of the picket fence from the “grassy knoll” at Dealey Plaza, which featured prominently in numerous assassination conspiracy theories, sold for $13,740. A bullet shot by the same gun Jack Ruby used to shoot Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Osward, sold for $18,568. A ticket and program to Kennedy’s 1962 birthday gala made famous by Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” sold for $2,525.
Many of the items have ties to Dallas and Fort Worth. A selection of photographs of Kennedy from Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, moments before he departed for Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 sold for $2,756. Old editions of The Dallas Morning News and now-defunct Dallas Times Herald covering the assassination fetched $2,069.
And Oswald’s first gun, a .38 revolver, sold for $31,625. The revolver came with a letter from Oswald’s brother, Robert L. Oswald:
“In early October 1956, Mother found out that my brother Lee had gotten a pistol. She was scared to death of guns. At the time, my mother, Lee and I were living in an apartment in Fort Worth, Texas…I told Lee that he had no business having a gun. I don’t know where it came from, how he got it, or where he got it. I told him I’d give him ten dollars for it.”
©2023 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
