DALLAS, TEXAS.- The more than 80 items that constitute
Heritage Auctions' Dec. 1 Historical Platinum Session Signature® Auction are, in the end, merely things. Among the auction's contents: chairs fashioned from wood and cane, a porcelain container kept at a bed's side, a billfold stuffed with one man's receipts and licenses, a television news camera lugged from event to event. Were it not for their respective places in history, they might have long ago been dispensed with and disposed of. Chopped up. Broken down. Thrown out.
Only through their connection to milestone yesterdays, to immortal somebodies, do they survive now, these tangible relics still here to hold, appreciate, admire, acquire. So important are these items, so well known are their stories — told in history books, recounted in documentaries and blockbuster films — it suffices enough to speak of them in shorthand.
Also, in Heritage's second blockbuster historical sale, is a gold medal — the gold medal — awarded to the planet's best and brightest. The spectacles of a president. The handwritten promise of an American war hero. A photo signed by the world's most famous actress to her legendary ball-playing husband. Even a highly coveted factory-sealed iPhone 1.
"Heritage has once again brought together the best of the very best highlighting the great personalities and events of the last several centuries," says Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena. "This auction serves as a profound reminder that history lives on through these tangible reminders still with us and still with stories to tell."
The 1970 Nobel Prize Medal and Diploma in Economic Sciences Awarded to Paul A. Samuelson
Paul Samuelson's death in December 2009 was first announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which, The New York Times noted in its epic obituary, Samuelson "helped build into one of the world's great centers of graduate education in economics." In its farewell, MIT accomplished the seemingly impossible by summing up Samuelson's life's work with relatively few words: "the Nobel laureate whose mathematical analysis provided the foundation on which modern economics is built and whose textbook influenced generations of students." Samuelson might well have appreciated the institution's economy of words.
A native of Gary, Ind., with a master's degree from Harvard, Samuelson made contributions too myriad to contain within the bounds of a media release; the same goes for the awards he received during a career that reshaped and revolutionized economics. As a high school freshman in Chicago, he studied the stock market; at 16, he left high school for the University of Chicago. Samuelson was born on May 15, 1915. "I was born as an economist on Jan. 2, 1932," he later said when discussing his first college lecture on the relation between poverty and population growth.
He once wrote, "I sometimes think of myself as the last 'generalist' in economics, with interests that range from mathematical economics down to current financial journalism." He loved teaching, researching, writing and proving himself, time and again, as one of the field's greatest combatants and cheerleaders.
Of Samuelson's numerous books, one — Economics: An Introductory Analysis, first published in 1948 and on and on ever since — became the world's best-selling and most influential economics text. Its popularity forced its translation into myriad tongues; discussions about its contents roared for decades. Only 14 years after its publication, BusinessWeek noted the book "has gone a long way toward giving the world a common economic language."
In 1970, after tenures serving as an economic advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, Samuelson became the first American to be awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel — "for the scientific work through which he has developed static and dynamic economic theory and actively contributed to raising the level of analysis in economic science."
Samuelson's family offers the medal at auction for the first time, along with the very first award presented to Samuelson — who was, in 1947, the inaugural recipient of this John Bates Clark Medal. So named for one of the founders and former presidents of the American Economic Association, the award is given annually (formerly biennially) to those under 40 who have provided the most significant contributions to the field of economic perception and understanding. Several recipients, Samuelson among them, became Nobel Laureates.
Also included too, is one of his final and most prestigious honors: the National Medal of Science presented to Samuelson by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
Items From Pete Mark's John F. Kennedy Collection
In May, Heritage offered numerous treasures from the vaunted assemblage of beloved philanthropist and American history collector Melvin "Pete" Mark Jr., the late Portland, Oregon, real estate developer. December's event presents even more extraordinary pieces — among them, a grail of sorts among collectors of John F. Kennedy history.
Rocking chairs commissioned by Kennedy to soothe his chronic back pain are highly coveted by collectors. One sold in May at Heritage, from the Mark collection, for nearly $600,000. But this event features the first one Kennedy ever used, the very oak rocker in which he discovered a way to relieve the unrelenting agony that had necessitated four grueling operations.
An oak P&P Chair Company rocker, with its high back and seat made of fine interwoven steam-bent cane, belonged to Dr. Janet P. Travell, whom Kennedy first visited in 1955 to treat his back.
As The Washington Post wrote upon her death at 95 in 1997, Travell prescribed numerous treatments for the young Sen. Kennedy, including swimming. But as the paper reported, she also "believed that a rocking chair relieved tension in the lower back by keeping the muscles moving, contracting and relaxing. Kennedy's oak rocker, with hand-woven cane seat and back, sparked a national revival of the old-fashioned rocking chair."
In her oral history at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Travell spoke at length about this chair. She recalled how Kennedy asked to be measured for a comfortable chair.
"People have often asked me about the rocking chair," she recounted. "I had one in my office at 9 West 16th Street. He sat in it, and he said, 'This is so comfortable, why can't I have one of these?' I said he could."
This chair, a sort of national symbol during the Kennedy administration, came from Travell's estate.
Mark collected items from throughout Kennedy's life and times, and counted among his prized, celebrated assemblage was the very Smith-Corona Electra 12 series 5L electric typewriter he used to type campaign and presidential speeches from 1959 through 1961. This typewriter, which Kennedy took to Paris during his historic meetings with French President Charles de Gaulle in May 1961, was designed for typing in extra-large characters, making it easier to read speeches from the podium. Also included is his White House hotline travel telephone, a relic of telecommunications in red, white and blue.
Mark had once loaned his collection to the Oregon History Museum, where two of his most-talked-about items were displayed: the wallet on Jack Ruby the day he killed Lee Harvey Oswald and the TV camera that captured Oswald's first interview and, likely, his final moments.
The wallet is precisely as described in the Dallas Police Department property clerk's receipt: "1 tan billfold with Tex oper's license in name of Jack Leon Ruby, 3929 Rawlins, 1 passenger car lic. Receipt, same, misc. papers, cards." Which doesn't even begin to describe the voluminous amount of history — and ephemera — stuffed into Ruby's wallet.
Just as the Warren Commission noted in its inventory, Ruby kept on him the very Certificate of Zoning and Location that allowed him to serve beer and wine at his Carousel club on Commerce Street in downtown Dallas, where the likes of Candy Barr and Jada entertained crowds (and cops). Ruby kept a Carousel card in his wallet, which likely provided more identification than his driver's license: It promised that the proprietor's floor-show joint would offer "sophisticated, risqué, provocative, delightful entertainment."
He kept in his billfold Carousel clippings, business cards, traffic tickets, blank checks, cards for attorneys and insurance men, receipts and notes. These fragments of interactions and transactions with a strip-club owner constitute the banal details that, for a time, served as the paper trail for investigators wanting to know why Ruby gunned down the president's assassin in the Dallas PD basement on Nov. 24, 1963.
From the same place at the exact moment, and those consequential two days earlier, comes this remarkable survivor: the KRLD news camera used by Dallas' CBS station to chronicle Kennedy's murder on Nov. 22, 1963. Indeed, it's the same General Electric Image Orthicon television camera, with the No. 3 sticker, seen on the cover of When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963, the history of those days as told by the journalists who covered the assassinations. This was the camera, operated by Gene Pasczalek, used to capture Oswald's midnight press conference hours after his capture at Oak Cliff's Texas Theatre. This camera caught the moment Oswald insisted, "I didn't kill anybody."
Two days later, Ruby killed Oswald live on national television. This camera was among those at Dallas PD headquarters that day, an unblinking witness to grim history.
A Deck Chair From the Titanic
This is not a punchline in search of a joke: The Dec. 1 Historical Platinum event does indeed feature a deck chair from the doomed British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during its maiden voyage.
Per the letter of provenance accompanying this fascinating wood-and-cane keepsake from the RMS Titanic, it was gifted to photographer Thomas Barker, who was invited aboard during the ship's stop in Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, on April 11, 1912. Barker, who worked for The Cork Examiner, photographed what might have otherwise been the mundane day-to-day activities aboard a luxury liner. In fact, his are the sole photos depicting passengers embarking on the ship.
According to the handwritten 1959 letter of provenance addressed to a Mrs. Walker and signed by Judith Borrow (née O'Brien) of Merseyside, England, Barker was gifted one of the deck chairs after commenting that he'd love to use one in his garden during the summer. But only days later, like the rest of the world, Barker learned of the tragedy that had befallen the Titanic; his souvenir had become a grim, haunting keepsake he no longer wanted. Barker's housemaid Patricia O'Brien, Borrow's mother, asked her employer for the chair, which eventually made its way to England — and now, to auction at Heritage.
During this auction, it's joined by a chamber pot from the Titanic— identified in this rare instance as the SS Titanic, which means it was made before the ship was designated as a Royal Mail Ship. This is likely the sole survivor of its kind. And it was not rescued from the ocean's floor; rather, it was brought aboard one of the lifeboats by a passenger who feared she might become seasick.
In time this chamber pot made its way into the collection of Michael Borrow, who founded a firm (Underwater Marine Equipment) specializing in subsea exploration equipment; Borrow is perhaps best known for having created the atmospheric diving suit featured in For Your Eyes Only. Before his death, Mr. Borrow passed the chamber pot to one of his closest friends — and its current consignor.
Sputnik Soars
The 1957 launch by the Soviet Union of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, represented far more than simply elevating a high-tech gadget into the heavens. It effectively marked the start of the space race between the USSR and the United States, superpowers already locked in a Cold War. The Russians celebrated the event, while many Americans feared falling behind in space might signal a similar lag on Earth.
A full-scale Sputnik 1 EMC/EMI Lab Model with Vintage Tesla Maj 620A Broadcast Receiver launches at auction — one of likely four known models produced by the OKB-1 (now Energia) lab in 1957 to test ground Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) and Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). It comes from the collection of Dr. Frank J. Malina, the Texan NASA says is "considered by some to be the father of modern rocketry." Two other models reside in museums — one at the Energia Corporate Museum outside Moscow and another at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
The lot is accompanied by a certificate of export issued by the National Technical Museum in Brno, Czech Republic, which notes that "the purpose of the models was to be technological demonstrators before the satellite production as such." The letter also notes that this model bears the serial number 004, which comes from the "private collection of Dr. Frank Malina (1912-1981). Dr. Malina obtained the object in question as a gift during the 60s of the 20th century in Europe."
Sputnik 1 was launched into a low Earth orbit and sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries ran out, after which it continued to orbit the planet for two months until aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere Jan. 4, 1958.
"The ability to track and study Sputnik 1 and the data it sent back forever changed the space race, specifically in terms of communication between space and people on Earth," says Brad Palmer, Director of Space Exploration at Heritage Auctions. "Sputnik 1 was deemed an enormous success for the Soviet space program and played a significant role in what became referred to as the 'American Sputnik crisis' — a sudden sense of urgency on behalf of the American space program to catch up and eventually surpass the success of the Russian space program."
