The auction of a personal letter signed by atom bomb pioneer Robert Oppenheimer is currently running at 75 times its estimate.
The letter is listed in the Fine Autograph and Artifacts Featuring JFK 60th / Presidents sale at RR Auctions.
It is a personal note from a hotel in Oregon to Dr Aida Sloan. It was sent in 1955, 10 years after Oppenheimer’s work on the first atomic weapons came to fruition with the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The note to Dr Aida Sloan.
The current top bid, against an estimate of just $1,000, is $74,594.
Oppenheimer’s life story was put under the spotlight this summer in a hit Christopher Nolan movie. Cillian Murphy played the scientist. Oppenheimer’s government career was effectively ended in 1954 when he lost his security clearance for his association with communists.
The 650-lot sale from the Boston-based auctioneers features numerous autographs, photographs, and documents of huge historical interest.
There is a $500,000 estimate on a diary kept by President John F Kennedy during his brief stint as a journalist at the close of World War II.
JFK travelled as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspapers. The diary contains his (handwritten and typed) notes of his work that included a trip through Europe, attendance at the Potsdam Conference, and the founding of the United Nations.
It is full of the future president’s observations on British, European, and world affairs at the close of the greatest conflict in human history.
Another standout is a set of American Statesmen biographies.
The 40 biographies include autographs of their subjects, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln. It has currently attracted a bid of over $25,000 against a $60,000 estimate.
Among other notable lots are a gun owned by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Dr Martin Luther King Jr signed letter, and a 1950 cheque signed by Marilyn Monroe.
The RR Auctions sale “Fine Autograph and Artifacts Featuring JFK 60th / Presidents” is open for bidding now and closes on November 8th.
