An auction of rare presidential china is set to break records this week, with George Washington’s “birthday feast plate,” which had been gifted to another former president, Andrew Jackson, leading the sale with an expected hammer price of $50,000.
And for an estimated $30,000 final price, RR Auction, which is conducting the sale online, is offering a plate from former President Thomas Jefferson’s White House that shows his initial.
“An incredibly rare opportunity to acquire such an attractive piece of U.S. history, as most, if not all, of the other china from the first three presidents were destroyed when the British ransacked and burned the Executive Mansion during the War of 1812,” the auction house said.
The auction, which concludes today, includes 39 items from 13 presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.
They were part of the celebrated presidential collection held by the late Raleigh DeGeer Amyx, a historian and expert of rare White House relics.
The auction house said that over decades, Amyx collected the plates and glasses and befriended presidents and White House staff members.
One of the more unusual items in the sale is a hand-carved, wooden beer stein used by Truman.
Other items include a plate from Dwight Eisenhower’s Air Force One china, FDR’s “yachting saucer,” former first lady Nancy Reagan’s breakfast plate, and plates from two versions of Bill Clinton’s china.
Said RR Auctions:
“More than an assortment of artifacts, Raleigh DeGeer Amyx’s collection represents the life long dream of one man, a personal quest to preserve and share American history — indeed, the collection assembled by Raleigh DeGeer Amyx embodied the nation’s past at its finest. As a young man, his avid interest in history and politics led him to employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1957, at first serving as a messenger to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, while also attending night school at American University. It was in this FBI position that he began to come into contact with the news-makers themselves — Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, and a young senator named John F. Kennedy were among his personal encounters.
“It was these important brushes with greatness while in Washington that inspired his re-alization that there were hundreds of first hand witnesses to history milling about the nation’s capital, each with their own fragment of history. Raleigh DeGeer Amyx, possessing a major background in American history, made it his quest to become acquainted with these folks — Mr. Amyx met the valets, housekeepers, cooks, secretaries, butlers, Secret Service agents, groundskeepers, upholsterers, and other career up-stairs assistants who had served presidents, many of whom worked at the White House for decades. Through these close personal connections, Mr. Amyx assembled the story of America, piece by piece, a project that took decades of diligence and continual contact with key career assistants.“
