Auctioning Off History - Part III (or IV; I can't quite remember)

If you follow along here regularly, you'll remember that I've written here recently and also farther back about auctions of historical memorabilia, and especially about such items that are connected to some of the darkest parts of history.

Well, I just saw an article here that it's going to happen tomorrow (Thursday, October 25, 2013). In this case, the items to be auctioned are all related in one way or another to John F. Kennedy. The article does not contain anything like a catalogue of the nearly 300 items to be sold, but from what the article does list, it seems like a lot of the items are specifically related to JFK's assassination in 1963.

For example, Lee Harvey Oswald's wedding ring, which he left home on the day he allegedly shot the president, will be up for auction. The ring belongs to Marina Oswald Porter, who was married to Oswald at the time of the assassination. The ring found its way into the files of a Fort Worth, Texas, attorney in 1964 and languished there until 2004. Porter is said to have gotten the ring back "relatively recently". A photo of the ring accompanying the article shows an engraving of what is said to be a hammer and sickle, the symbol of the Soviet Union, where Oswald met and married Marina Oswald Porter.

In a letter written in May 2013 by Porter that details the history of the ring, she says that the does not want the ring anymore because she wants to let go of the part of her past that is associated with the assassination. And that makes sense, I guess. What doesn't make sense to be is why anyone would want to buy the ring, which is expected to fetch upward of $100,000 in the auction, to be held in Boston.

Among the other items to be sold at the auction is a window, said to be the window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository that Oswald allegedly shot from, and that was apparently removed from the building shortly after the assassination. Also to be sold is Oswald's Marine Corps rifle score book and a hat once worn by Oswald's assassin, Jack Ruby. Not directly related to the assassination but to be sold at the auction is JFK's rosary.

I won't go on again, as I have before, about how I don't understand the compulsion to own the past in the form of such items. Suffice it to say that I think it is an odd thing to do. What I am fascinated with, however, are the items that end up coming up for auction and how they went from whatever point they became a footnote to history to the auction block. In that sense, the letter written by Marina Oswald Porter, that outlines the history of the wedding ring, is more interesting to me than the ring itself.

The auction house made an agreement with Porter not to release the complete contents of the letter, which will go to whoever purchases the ring. But, I would be very interested to read it, to find out what she claims for the history of the object.

Which, I suppose, makes me just as strange as those who will bid on the ring, and as strange as the person who ends up winning the bidding. On the other hand, studying primary documents like that are how history is written, and that is something that interests me very much.

What would you pay good money for?

Every time I think that our celebrity-obsessed culture has finally jumped the very last shark possible, somebody goes and does something even more egregiously weird than the last time, or the time before that, or the time before that.

If you follow along around here, you know that this kind of thing drives me crazy. I've written about it before. Back in 2010, I wrote about somebody's plan to auction off Lee Harvey Oswald's original coffin. I don't recall if that sale ever happened, but the prospect of it was reported at the time.

I thought I had also written about another plan to auction off the bathtub that James Earl Ray had supposedly stood in while he shot Martin Luther King, Jr., but I can't find that post right now, so that might be a figment of my imagination. The sale of the tub, however, is not a figment of my imagination: NBC news reported on its sale to a casino in 2006.

Both sales are just inconceivable to me. Morbid. And just plain strange.

What, you might wonder, brings the subject up again?

Well, this does - a story on CNN's website reporting that someone is planning to auction off six of Marilyn Monroe's facial x-rays. To make this even more of a draw, I suppose, for some people, the x-rays were apparently taken just two months before her death. In the story, a representative of the auction house handling the sale justifies the sale by citing "demand". The auction house expects to bring in between $20,000 and $30,000 from the x-rays and says that it has already identified interested parties.

I'm really not sure how to even respond to this, except to say that I think it is horribly invasive. Yes, Marilyn Monroe has been dead for over 50 years. Even so, this still strikes me as nothing but wrong. And then there's the further revelation in the article about other specific things that her medical records reveal about her - things I'm not going to repeat here because I don't think it is anyone's business what is in her medical files. I even feel kind of bad about providing the link to the article online, and I'm really only linking to provide proof that this story is not all in my head.

Morbid curiosity drives these sorts of auctions, and morbid curiosity is not anything like a good excuse for an auction like this. Even in the cases above, of Oswald's coffin and Ray's bathtub, with the connection to actual history, I don't see anything but morbidity at play.

I'm not going to belabor the point any further. But, if you've got another perspective on this, I'd like to hear it. Because I just don't understand why anyone would want to buy Marilyn Monroe's x-rays. Or, really, anything else relating to a celebrity. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

One other question before I go for the day: What would you pay good money for? An autograph? A piece of furniture that belonged to someone you admire? Something else? Let me know in the comments.

You said you're going to buy what?!?

File this under, “People mystify me sometimes”.

I came across a brief news story on Yahoo!News today (which I won’t bother to link because their links are sometimes very transitory) which explains that Lee Harvey Oswald’s original coffin is about to be auctioned by an auction house in Los Angeles. Bids are already underway, and are now at $1000 for the plain pine casket.

The coffin became available when Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was exhumed in 1981 in order to put to rest a rumor that a look-alike was buried in his place after he was shot by Jack Ruby just two days after JFK’s killing. When Oswald was reburied after testing apparently showed that it really was his body, and not that of an imposter or a look-alike, a new coffin was used.

A representative of the auction house said that the coffin, which was underground for about 18 years, is in “worn condition” and not all in one piece, but that “it would be easy to restore.”

Cool. I guess.

But I really wish someone would explain to me just what kind of a person would buy a used coffin? I understand the historical significance and all. I really do. But the idea of buying a coffin in which a body…any body…had been in for nearly two decades is really beyond my comprehension.

I do understand that there are people who put great value on anything someone famous…or infamous, as in Oswald’s case…owned or had contact with. But a coffin. That someone was buried in. No. Just, no.

If you disagree, I’d really like to hear from you about why you think something like that would be on anyone’s to-buy list. What would you do with it? Turn it into a coffee table? Use it as a hope chest? Sleep in it? I suppose a museum might buy it and display it as an historical curiosity, but I tend to doubt that will happen.

As an afterward, and along these lines, if you’re interested in a meditation on the idea of items that have been possessed by famous people or that were involved in historical events gain extra value just by virtue of having those connections, you might be interested in reading The Man in the High Castle, a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. There are some interesting thoughts about this idea that come up in the course of the story.