This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 8/21/2014.
The origin of this tragic souvenir begins with F. Vaughn Ferguson, Technical Service Representative at the White House garage for twenty years. Ferguson was personally responsible for cleaning the limousine after the FBI had completed their gathering of forensic evidence. Ferguson removed the blood-stained leather upholstery and eventually sold large sections to prominent presidential collector Raleigh DeGeer Amyx, from whose collection the leather began to publicly surface at auction in 2004 and 2005. The blood-stained piece of dark blue leather from the back seat of the limousine in which President Kennedy was riding in when he was shot on November 22, 1963. The offered fragment measures roughly ¼” x ½” and was extracted from the aforementioned larger section. The dark blue leather is from the border of the rear seat in which Kennedy was sitting. The piece has been archivally mounted within a double-matted display measuring 11" x 14. Accompanying the piece is a photocopy of Ferguson's LOA to Amyx, dated November 22, 1983 (the 20th anniversary of the assassination). It reads, in part: "Four days after the Assassination the White House upholsterer and I removed this leather at the White House… The spots on the leather are the dried blood of our beloved President, John F. Kennedy.” Also accompanied by a copy of a signed LOA from John Reznikoff, president of University Archives, reading, "Bloodstained leather from the dark blue edge of the rear seat from the 1961 Lincoln Continental President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated, November 22, 1963." Additional provenance includes photocopied documentation regarding the Amyx Collection in general and its blood-stained leather sections (originating from Ferguson) in particular.