JFK Autographs, Photographs, Ephemera, and Stamps to Auction

The third part of JG Autographs's online Collecting Camelot: The Kennedy Legacy auction features 550 lots of autographs, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts relating to John F. Kennedy, Jackie, and the Kennedy family.

Ending July 21, it features the archive of Benjamin A. Smith II, President Kennedy’s Harvard roommate, lifelong friend and former US Senator from Massachusetts. Items are being offered publicly, having remained in the Smith family’s possession and never before exhibited or made available to collectors.

Additionally, the sale includes the JFK philatelic collection of Edward Krohn who authored the John F. Kennedy Cover Catalog, the definitive reference documenting thousands of Kennedy-related postal covers and cachets. Many of the covers in this sale come directly from Krohn’s personal collection and are illustrated in his landmark reference work. 

Auction highlights include:

• a copy of Why England Slept, autographed and inscribed by John F. Kennedy to Benjamin A. Smith II “To Ben Smith, a great guy and smart too, who gave me most of my information,” followed by his signature “Jack” (estimate: $4,500-$6,000)
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s two-page autograph letter (signed “Jackie”) to Barbara Smith, the widow of Benjamin A. Smith II, written from her residence at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York and dated October 6, 1991, with the original mailing envelope addressed in Ms. Kennedy’s hand and bearing her initials “J.K.O.” (estimate: $1,250-$1,500)
• JFK’s White House photographer Cecil W. Stoughton’s Air Force One passenger manifest from the flight departing Dallas on November 22, 1963, documenting the occupants aboard the presidential aircraft following JFK’s assassination (estimate: $3,000-$3,500)
• an Abraham Zapruder autographed First Day Cover honoring John F. Kennedy, issued May 29, 1964, on the official U.S. Postal Service memorial stamp commemorating the late president (estimate: $2,500-$3,000)