Bearish on history?
Is the economy beginning to affect the market for historical memorabilia? Could be, if last weekend’s auction of the flight suit worn by Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay during its mission over Hiroshima, is any indication.
“It was unfortunate that we could not find someone in the whole United States [to buy] something so historic,” said Bill Panagopulos of Alexander Autographs in Stamford, Conn., which held the auction. No bidders met the reserve price of $150,000 for the lot, which also included Tibbets’ Distinguished Service Cross. The items were acquired from a museum owner in Ohio, where Tibbets donated the suit.
“The market was soft,” said Panagopulos.
Not so for items related to African-American history, he said, attributing it to the election of Barack Obama. A letter from Martin Luther King Jr. to a New York City cop went for $5,000. A letter from a reconstruction-era Georgia legislator seeking to remove blacks from elected office fetched $3,200, nearly six times its estimate. And three items bearing Abraham Lincoln’s signature fetched between $8,000 and $9,000 apiece.
