A pair of license plates from the limousine that drove President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy through downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963 — the day he was assassinated — were sold on auction Saturday by Heritage Auctions.
Reportedly when the car was retrofitted after the assassination, a person working on the vehicle threw the license plates in the trash. However, Willard Hess, the owner of the business, retrieved the number plates and kept them on a shelf between two books.
When Hess passed away, his daughter Jane Walker inherited the plates and kept them in a drawer in her kitchen for several decades. Walker told the Guardian that she was aware of their significance, and “On occasion, I would take them out and show to friends.”
The number plates sold for $100,000 on the auction and were bought by an anonymous bidder.
Also listed on the auction was the US Passport issued to John F. Kennedy as a Congressman in 1951. However, there is no news as to whether offers were made for that item. Various other JFK related items were also on offer.
On the same auction, a copy of a dinner menu of the RMS Titanic was also on offer. The menu was from the last first-class dinner served on the fated Titanic before it hit the iceberg and sank.
According to Irish Central, an anonymous collector put it up for auction and reportedly the menu is the last one in existence to survive from the April 14, 1912 dinner. Of interest to note, five businessmen had written their addresses on the menu while enjoying dinner together the night before the ship sank. According to the auction house, four of the five men did survive the disaster.
Heritage Auctions named the first class passengers as Edward P. Calderhead of New York City, Spencer V. Silverthorne of St. Louis, George E. Graham from Winnipeg, Canada; James R. McGough, from Philadelphia; and John Irwin Flynn of Brooklyn. Reportedly Flynn, McGough and Calderhead all worked as buyers for Gimbel’s department store.
The menu fetched the sum of $118,750 from an anonymous bidder at the auction.
