February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
But what was goodbye for the seller, Caroline Kennedy, was a big-bucks hello to hundreds of new owners of Jackie and Jack stuff.
This was Camelot by the lot number. And there was lots to go around, 691 of them to be precise, and they ranged from kitchen things to presidential things to artistic things.
And sometimes mere things.
While some might see a doorstop as so much bric-a-brac, the buyer felt more than pleased even after forking over $4,800 for a tangible link to the Kennedy legend.
After all, Jackie might have picked this little treasure up, or she might have nudged it with her well heeled toe.
With the last of five sale sessions in full swing it was clearly apparent that the Kennedy mystique had far from faded with the passing of the years.
Back in 1996, a much bigger sale of the first couple’s property went for $34.5 million.
Last week’s sale was a humbler affair. At least on paper. Not a few of the items in the catalog had estimated values in double figures. But nobody was paying attention to such low balling.
So up went the paddles and up, up, up went the bids.
Already sold by this ultimate session was the much used and envied wicker-backed rocker.
It was the only chair in the 7th floor auction room that wasn’t holding someone.
The rocker was, however, well worth standing to have a closer look at.
It was behind a drawn security tape but the innumerable eyes fixed on its guaranteed worn seat saw only JFK contemplating awesome political and military power, or perhaps just his dinner.
A woman stood and took a photo with her digital camera. She smiled at the chair. JFK, for sure, must have been smiling back, his humor doubtless inspired by the $96,000 paid by the new owner of his old refuge from back pain.
And so it went. Lot items fell like bowling pins to the paddle wavers. One paddle-clutching hand was adorned with a long black glove. A little touch of Jackie.
Bids came in at fast clip over the phones, sometimes winning the race, sometimes not.
All the lots came from five homes once occupied by Jack and Jackie, or Jackie in the years after the president’s death and during her marriage to Aristotle Onassis.
These were not the treasures of the Sierra Madre or El Dorado, but of Hyannis Port, Martha’s Vineyard, New Jersey horse country, Manhattan and rural Virginia.
There was, of course, more than a whiff of New England about the horde. But there were also traces of old Ireland.
An Irish flag was one of five fluttering over the Sotheby’s Upper East Side Front door.
And within the pages of the 380-page catalog there were little Irish touches such as the photograph of President Kennedy and Caroline on St. Patrick’s Day 1963, the first daughter sporting a large green rosette.
And there was Lot 113, a group of books relating to the Celts and Ireland valued at between $150 and $250. The bundle fetched $3,300.
Deeper into the catalog, Lot 366 was a Japanese embroidered silk and metallic thread panel depicting a bald eagle perched on Irish and American flags, the Irish one being green with a golden harp and shamrocks.
The buyer? Perhaps a wealthy and nostalgic Irish-American. The panel was valued at $2,000 to $3,000. It sold for a stately $48,000.
With some lots it was easy to see why the prices would soar. Others were a little more puzzling. Was it the piece of driftwood in Lot 625 that inspired the winning $4,750 bid? Or was it the seven miniature penguins?
The combination was valued at only $40 to $60. But, of course, the wood might have drifted up onto that beach at the Hyannis compound where JFK used to walk and run with his dog, or sit in a rowboat with his son.
Nothing was left adrift by the end of the sale. Even a photo of Richard and Pat Nixon estimated at between $700 and $1,000 went for a more salutary $3,750.
It’s tempting to imagine what the 37th president might think of his image getting such a leg up as a result of Kennedy provenance.
When the final hammer went down on the last lot it rang up a three-day total of $5,538,040.
Not bad for stuff. But, of course, the stuff of real-life legend.