The lots were sold over a four-day period from 23 to 26 April 1996 across nine separate sessions. Space in the sale room was limited to about 2,000 potential buyers a day. Sotheby’s anticipated that the auction would raise more than $4.6m ($9.4m or £7m today). By the time the BBC reported on day two of the auction, that estimate had shot up.
According to the BBC’s Sam Jaffa, “The most costly items were those intimately associated with the White House years.” A child’s rocking horse that was priced at $75,000 went for $400,000 ($820,000 or £600,000 today). “Never in their wildest dreams could anyone from Sotheby’s have imagined the success of this sale,” he said. Bargains were few. The lowest price paid was $1,250 for six books about Asia. A three-string necklace of fake pearls, shown in a famous 1962 photograph of Jackie with her toddler son John tugging at them, was estimated at $500-$700. It went for $211,500. Her cigarette lighter, expected to reach $300, went for $85,000. The textbook with the clothes doodles fetched $42,500 ($87,000 or £64,000 today).
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The item that raised the biggest price was her enormous engagement ring, which went for $2.6m ($5.3m or £4m today). Cut from the 601-carat Lesotho III diamond, it was bought by Anthony O’Reilly, billionaire chairman of the Heinz food group, who the New York tabloids swiftly labelled the Ketchup King. O’Reilly decided to buy the diamond for his wife Cryss, herself a member of a Greek shipping family, after seeing it in a newspaper. The second highest price was $1.3m ($2.7m or £2m today), paid for the antique French desk where President Kennedy signed the partial nuclear test ban treaty in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis.
Among the highest profile buyers was actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at the time was married to Maria Shriver, President Kennedy’s niece. His biggest purchase was Kennedy’s MacGregor golf clubs in a bag inscribed “JFK Washington DC”. The $772,500 he paid was quite a bit higher than the $900 price it was expected to fetch. He also bought a Norman Rockwell painting of the president for $134,500 and a leather desk set for $189,500.
