Presidential madness? Questionable Kennedy and Truman sets sold at auction

[MacDaddy]

Last year we saw this strange mixed set supposedly belonging to John F. Kennedy sell for $23K. But did anyone else happen to catch these other auction lots earlier this month? A second set allegedly owned by JFK went for $28,750, and this other one claimed to have been owned by Harry S. Truman closed at $16,250. All three were from the collection of Raleigh DeGeer Amyx.

I'm really starting to smell something rotten here. In the case of the JFK set, the biggest problem is that Kennedy was born in 1917, and would have been just 12 years old when Gillette stopped making that set. In and of itself that's not an impossibility. It could have been a confirmation gift, albeit probably a bit premature. However, the letter that comes with it states that the embossing on the outside of the case showed his name as "Lt. John F. Kennedy," and judging from the placement of the lettering, even though most of it is destroyed, the whole imprint would be oddly off center on the case lid if there weren't something in front of his first name.







At the very least the pieces in that set are possibly correct as a complete New Improved Traveler, unlike the set that sold last year. The HST set, however, was another dog's breakfast of mismatched parts: the case from a NEW DeLuxe Big Boy and the blade sleeve from a 1946-'47 Aristocrat with a standard short-comb, bar-handled NEW.





Also, am I nuts or does the monogram engraving on these sets, particularly the JFK one from last year and this HST one, look both extremely similar and extremely poor quality?

As a one-off I might be inclined to just sort of shrug any one of these off, but taken as a group this really starts to look strange to me. Am I alone here?

 

[nuclearblast]

This greatly exceeds my knowledge so I'm not much of a help, nor my opinion is valuable. But ... I think it's pretty clear that at least the last "set" you shows us here, is not original at all, I mean it's so obvious.

Also, as you say the case is for a Big Boy Deluxe, and the interior seems to have been flipped? What's up with that, or have you seen others like that? Usually the blade sleeve is behind the razor.

 

[MacDaddy]

This greatly exceeds my knowledge so I'm not much of a help, nor my opinion is valuable. But ... I think it's pretty clear that at least the last "set" you shows us here, is not original at all, I mean it's so obvious.

The JFK set that sold last year was an even bigger frankensalad than that HST one. Case, tins, and blade cases from most likely an Old Type (but certainly no later than New Improved) Combination Set, long-comb NEW head, thick Tech handle. I mean, sure, guys would have combined parts as they lost or broke things or as they found new things that they liked. But to then have the resulting mishmash monogrammed?

Here's one of the photos from the other thread just for reference here:

Also, as you say the case is for a Big Boy Deluxe, and the interior seems to have been flipped? What's up with that, or have you seen others like that? Usually the blade sleeve is behind the razor.

Yeah, the bottom tray is just an insert in the case and it's clearly been flipped backwards at some point. Maybe to put the blade sleeve more on display and play down the fact that the razor doesn't fit the case at all?

 

[MacDaddy]

Wow! It's a good thing I grabbed those when I did because between this morning and now the RR Auctions site has rolled the items from that last auction out, and the links above now go to items in their upcoming catalog.

 

[techblade01]

This greatly exceeds my knowledge so I'm not much of a help, nor my opinion is valuable. But ... I think it's pretty clear that at least the last "set" you shows us here, is not original at all, I mean it's so obvious.

Also, as you say the case is for a Big Boy Deluxe, and the interior seems to have been flipped? What's up with that, or have you seen others like that? Usually the blade sleeve is behind the razor.

+1

 

[awa54]

Wouldn't it also be more common to see the last name initial as the center letter in a monogram from this time period?

 

[poikkeus]

Anybody who watches Pawn Stars or Antiques Road Show knows that the extended value of an item comes from its provenance; or, string of ownership. Who had these items first, and where did they come from?

Looking at things from a different angle...you're not going to find so many monogrammed items relating to unpopular presidents. JFK is a natural; Hoover and Wilson aren't.

 

[nuclearblast]

The JFK set that sold last year was an even bigger frankensalad than that HST one. Case, tins, and blade cases from most likely an Old Type (but certainly no later than New Improved) Combination Set, long-comb NEW head, thick Tech handle. I mean, sure, guys would have combined parts as they lost or broke things or as they found new things that they liked. But to then have the resulting mishmash monogrammed?

Here's one of the photos from the other thread just for reference here:


Yeah, the bottom tray is just an insert in the case and it's clearly been flipped backwards at some point. Maybe to put the blade sleeve more on display and play down the fact that the razor doesn't fit the case at all?

Whatever they did, it clearly worked ... those went for big $$$ ...

 

[BSAGuy]

Sounds/smells fishy to me. As they say in gun collecting....... buy the gun, not the story.

 

[nuclearblast]

Sounds/smells fishy to me. As they say in gun collecting....... buy the gun, not the story.

+1

Even though some guys have very deep pockets, surprises me that they would drop this kind of money without having any kind of evidence of its authenticity.

Then again some pockets are so deep they really don't care.

 

[jamesspo]

+1

Even though some guys have very deep pockets, surprises me that they would drop this kind of money without having any kind of evidence of its authenticity.

Then again some pockets are so deep they really don't care.

That's the key. Items with stories are sold for big bucks all the time. Honestly, it's the prime driver of most extremely high priced items at auction. But in those cases, there is verification of authenticity by an expert in the field. I'm shocked anything without that would go for anywhere near that kind of money.

 

[August West]

Kennedy was an Injector man.

 

[MacDaddy]

Wouldn't it also be more common to see the last name initial as the center letter in a monogram from this time period?

In a case like these where all three initials are given equal prominence it'd be more likely for them to just appear in order. What you're thinking of is generally when the monogram is more stylized with the last initial larger in the center.

Anybody who watches Pawn Stars or Antiques Road Show knows that the extended value of an item comes from its provenance; or, string of ownership. Who had these items first, and where did they come from?

Even though some guys have very deep pockets, surprises me that they would drop this kind of money without having any kind of evidence of its authenticity.

All three auctions included letters or notes from the previous owners. The latest JFK set above has a pretty long letter from a person who claims to have bought the set on Portobello Road in London from a shopkeeper who said that it came from someone who used to work in the American Embassy during the time that JFK's father was the ambassador.







The earlier JFK set came with a letter supposedly from a White House maid saying that she'd been given the set by the President's valet after his assassination. That one was posted already in the earlier thread I mentioned, but I'll pull it over here, too, just for reference:

And the HST set came with this card supposedly from a woman who was a White House seamstress.



Whether those are reliable or not, I keep coming back to the extremely sketchy nature of these sets and particularly their engraving. I mean, it's not like we're looking at something like the Dupont toiletry set that's been up on eBay for a while now, where even without the connection to a known person you'd still have a gorgeous piece that would likely bring a significant amount of money on its own. And looking at the set it does all seem proper and you can believe that it was owned by someone like a Dupont.

Not one of these three sets would be even remotely remarkable without their potential connection to a president, and if that's this questionable I just don't know what you're buying...

 

[jamesspo]

Those aren't authentication. They may be part of the package of materials that an expert would use to authenticate, but by themselves, they mean next to nothing.

 

[MacDaddy]

Those aren't authentication. They may be part of the package of materials that an expert would use to authenticate, but by themselves, they mean next to nothing.

No, I agree. Not saying they are. Just saying that as far as I could see from the auction listings that's all they were offering by way of substantiating their claims.

 

[jamesspo]

No, I agree. Not saying they are. Just saying that as far as I could see from the auction listings that's all they were offering by way of substantiating their claims.

Yep, understood. Really surprising folks would buy on that sort of "evidence". Crazy!

 

[Mark1966]

Hmmmm, I might just wander down to the local engraver with a couple of sets ....

Anybody interested in a engraved Slim Aristocrat once owned by George Washington - it is actually NOS as he never got to use it, I have the full set with unused blades and shipper. All offers over $100k considered

I think I'm with you Porter - dubious provenance as far as we know. The odd thing to me if these are fakes would be that they didn't do their homework enough on the sets. The letters seems to have got some credence and work has gone into making them 'plausible' but they undermined that by a lack of research on the razors. It would not be hard to get legitimate sets which would have aroused less suspicion....