Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do some preliminary research to get them started. So, these are market values based on prices I find on the web, not appraisal for insurance purposes that I suggest for items that have been determined to be of great value.
Today’s question is from a reader in India who has a letter written by John F. Kennedy to her father that appears to have been signed in the president’s hand.
Question:
Since this November marks the 50th death anniversary of one of the most popular presidents of America, i.e. JFK, and since JFK had promised to end discrimination of blacks in US and in this honor, I would like to post my own collectible, that is, a letter of JFK in 1961 to my father late B J Roberts (we are Indians and living in India) on his presidential election. I inherited this from my father and I treasure it the most.
My reply:
Lucky you to have a letter signed by Kennedy. Can you tell me more about the circumstances surrounding the letter and why Kennedy sent it to your father? Who was your father and what spurred him to write the letter to Kennedy?
Her reply:
Well, my father born on 23.12.1901 was a humble man, just an ordinary driver, and an ardent admirer of some of the most famous people around the world. Mahatma Gandhi (India), Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and so on. He always derived inspiration from these great men. Though an Indian, he loved American history. Most of US history he taught me through his vast collection of stamps and coins. He had special admiration for the Kennedys and when JFK was elected, my father wrote to congratulate him and he quickly received his reply.
I remember how sad my father had felt at the tragic death of JFK on 22nd Nov 1963, when I was just a little girl of 12 and I vividly remember my father explaining everything to me from the newspapers he read and the news from the radio. (We did not have a TV then). My father was so proud of the said letter from JFK and he always told me to preserve it for all times to come, and unto this day, though I do not know the monetary worth of it, many collectors are vying to buy it from me. I cherish the letter very much. My father passed away on 12.11.1988, leaving behind a volume of great history through his rich collection of letters, stamps and coins.
My research:
Reader Irene sent me photos of the Kennedy letter, and his name looked as if it had been signed by him. The signature would have to be authenticated by a reputable and expert authenticator if she would ever want to sell the letter. In my research, I found that the president had a lot of secretaries who signed his correspondence, and even he signed his name differently on occasion.
Kennedy won a close presidential election against Richard Nixon in 1960. He went on to become the nation’s leader during a time when relations were strained across the waters with Fidel Castro in Cuba (the Bay of Pigs) and Nikita Khrushchev in Russia (the Cold War) amid an emerging and forceful civil rights movement among African Americans across the nation.
The president acted slowly on civil rights as the movement was gaining ground, and had to be pushed to take action as he saw what others saw on TV and read in the newspapers: the bludgeoning, water torture and mistreatment of black freedom fighters at the hands of white segregationists. He finally had a Civil Rights Act introduced in Congress, but it did not pass until after his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
He wasn’t exactly enamored of plans for a March on Washington in 1963, fearful that it could result in violence and hamper approval of the act. He and his administration worked against it, trying to control its planning and execution as much as they could but finally relented, praising the organizers after it was over.
The Kennedy letter to Irene’s father seemed to have come at a much happier time for him. It was typed on U.S. Senate stationery; Kennedy had served there since 1953 as a representative from Massachusetts.
The letter says, in part:
“I am most heartened by the many expressions of good will which I have received from abroad. I am sure that they reflect a broad unity of purpose throughout the world community. I hope that my record during the next four years will sustain your confidence.”
Kennedy’s own handwritten signature is considered valuable and is much valued. The worth, though, is based on what the document says on which it is written, and whether it was typed or handwritten. One site noted that documents he signed as a senator are more easily found while those he signed as president are scarce. Ones that he signed while campaigning are much more common, according to the website
That site was selling Kennedy documents from $7,500 to $35,000 (for a Lucite pen that he used to sign the Peace Corps Act in 1961). The front page of a Dallas Morning News newspaper reportedly signed by Kennedy the morning of his assassination sold for about $39,000 at auction in 2011. Here are some recent and past modest prices for Kennedy documents sold at one auction house.
Authenticating his signature seems to be an art in itself. Kennedy was said to have had many secretaries to sign his letters. One of the first analyses of his signature was done by Charles Hamilton in 1965 when he studied examples of Kennedy’s own handwritten signature, and those done by autopen or his dozen or so secretaries. Hamilton wrote what some consider the definitive book on the subject based on his study, “The Robot that Helped to Make a President.”
Curious, I also had another question for Irene. Her name was English, so I wondered if she and her father had been born there.
Her reply:
We are Indians, born Indians. If you will go through our Indian history, perhaps you will see many inter-marriages during the British rule. Thus an Indian woman marrying either a British, Dutch, Portuguese or French man naturally inherited the respective surnames. Also there was a large scale conversion during the entry of St. Thomas the Apostle of Lord Jesus … also during the Portuguese and British time. There are scores of very old and ancient churches built by the Dutch, Portuguese, French and British all over India. Therefore, it is pretty common for many Indians to have English, Portuguese, French or Dutch names or surnames.
