Go to main content

Elvis World-news Once Again

October 11, 1999 | Other
The auction in the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel, where former Elvis-belongs are sold by the famous auction house Guernsey, makes Elvis Presley world news once again. Graceland (Elvis Presley Enterprises) decided to get rid of a lot of Elvis-stuff to support a social housing project in Memphis, to be called Presley Place.
© Las Vegas Review Journal
The auction started last Friday with the selling of Elvis-material from the 50’s. This first day, where e.g. a Gold Record for Jailhouse Rock was sold for $ 147,000 and the keys of Graceland for $ 23,000, already brought Graceland an estimated $ 1.5 million, while they hoped for a total of at least $ 2 million for the complete auction.
Some other remarkable bids were "only" $ 250,000 for a white Lincoln Continental, the one Elvis used while dating Natalie Wood, "only" $ 65,000 for Elvis’ first RCA-contract and $ 11,000 for a signed credit card. At the moment the total proceeds are not known yet, after Saturday-night the total was beyond $ 2.5 million. Writing this the famous Aloha-cape, TCB glasses and his personal bible has to be sold and it seems such personal belongings gather a lot more than documents.
Besides this huge Elvis auction in Las Vegas there was an auction at Christies in London earlier this year. There an Elvis shirt (worn in That’s The Way It Is) was sold for more than $ 30,000.
Sources: Reuter, Memphis Commercial Appeal and Las Vegas Review Journal, Always Elvis fanclub.