The two most famous assassination victims in American political history are still the most collectible US politicians; a major sale of Americana brought big money for Lincoln and JFK items last week.
The Heritage Auctions Americana & Political Signature sale last Friday and Saturday, October 24 to 25, put the two slain leaders front and centre with a cane owned by Lincoln and a Kennedy watch raising the most cash.
The watch was given to John F Kennedy by members of the Democractic National Committee just as the young Masschussetts senator had secured the 1960 presidential nomination. He wore the gold, Benrus watch throughout the campaign, as he made its inscription “TO OUR NEXT PRESIDENT J.F.K.” an era-defining truth.
Before the sale, Heritage said: “This offering is a rare opportunity indeed for serious Kennedy collectors to purchase an impeccably documented watch worn by JFK.”
One such collector paid $137,500 (with all fees) for the timepiece.
It was authenticated by Dave Powers, a long-time Kennedy aide.
At the centre of this photograph sits Abraham Lincoln, about to give the most famous speech of his life. On the same day he apparently picked up and used a stick as a walking cane.
The Lincoln cane realised $93,750.
It is an extraordinary piece: a walking stick reportedly picked up by Abraham Lincoln as he visited the battlefield at Gettysburg, in November 1863 to make his most famous speech, The Gettysburg Address.
Lincoln gave the stick away to the Secretary of War, Edwin M Stanton, who added an inscription on a brass knob to commemorate and cement the stick’s origins on the bloodiest and most decisive American Civil War battlefield.
Both Lincoln and Kennedy died violent public deaths and were mourned as epochal political figures. Items related to either man – and particularly to their murders – are extremely collectible.
Lincoln’s own signed copy of the 13th Amendment (the constitutional change that effectively outlawed slavery) was sold for $13.7 million earlier this year. A pair of gloves, stained with his blood and worn by Lincoln on the night he was killed, made $1.5 million in May 2025.
A gold Rolex watch allegedly given to Jack Kennedy by Marilyn Monroe (the most notorious of his many rumoured liaisons) sold for $120,000 in 2005 – a price that could be multiplied many times if the link could be conclusively proved.
