These rare candid pics of teenage JFK are endearing, and now up for grabs
Just a future president and his bros
On April 1, 1959, John F. Kennedy wrote the first draft of what would eventually become his official announcement that he would run for president of the United States.
The speech was written in pencil on stationery with letterhead for the Kennedy family compound in Palm Beach, Florida. There are cross-outs, scribbles, and smudges in his notoriously terrible handwriting. It starts with the line, “I am announcing today my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.’’
The paper now lives in a plastic envelope at RR Auction’s Amherst, New Hampshire warehouse, waiting to be sold starting September 17. It’s expected to go in the neighborhood of $60,000-$80,000.
The auction house made news when it revealed it possessed an extremely rare set of photos from Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding. Since its founding in 1976, RR Auction churns out some 18,000 items each year, ranging from pop culture memorabilia to space artifacts to a pair of Bonnie and Clyde’s pistols — they sold for $504,000, thank you very much.
Close by in their archives, another Kennedy rarity comes in the form of a set of candid pics of teenage JFK in 1935. They were torn out of a family scrapbook by Joe Kennedy, Sr. for biographer Gene Schoor, who published Young John Kennedy in 1963. Three of the five photos made it into Schoor’s book, while two — one of Kennedy and his classmates at Choate Rosemary Hall, and the other of him with his father and cousin on a ship — remained unseen.
Which Kennedy clan member was the scrapbooker? RR’s resident Kennedy expert Tricia Eaton couldn’t say. “But they were the Kennedys, so they were pretty meticulous,’’ she said.
The set of candids is currently up for grabs through September 16, and is expected to fetch between $1500-$2000.
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