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JFK's Briefcase, a Wedding Present from Jackie

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Historical Memorabilia Start Price:50,000.00 USD Estimated At:200,000.00 - 300,000.00 USD
JFK's Briefcase, a Wedding Present from Jackie
<B>The Briefcase Purchased by Jacqueline Bouvier as a Wedding Present for her Husband-to-Be John F. Kennedy.</B></I> Without a doubt, one of the most important and exciting pieces of JFK memorabilia to ever be offered to the public. <BR><BR>It was early 1952. A well-educated and traveled young New York Society woman, a former "Debutante of the Year", was working as a photographer for the <I>Washington Times-Herald.</B></I> She would ask people on the street their opinions on various subjects, take their photograph, and write it up for her "Inquiring Photographer" column in the paper. In the course of this occupation, she met, one fateful day, a young liberal Democratic congressman (soon to be senator) from Massachusetts, one of the "rising stars" of the party, not to mention one of the most eligible young bachelors in Washington, D.C. Their romance blossomed slowly- after all she was engaged to a stockbroker and planning a June 1952 wedding at the time of their meeting. On September 12, 1953, the couple was married at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island with a reception afterwards at Hammersmith Farm, a place full of happy childhood memories for her. She probably fretted as to what to give this wealthy war hero and politician as a wedding present, finally deciding upon a handsome tan leather attaché made by Crouch & Fitzgerald of New York. It had been featured in their 1952 catalogue and she likely purchased it in the Madison Avenue store where her family had long shopped. His now-legendary initials "JFK" were monogrammed in gold under the handle. It was a gift that the groom would appreciate and use for the rest of his foreshortened life. This couple, of course, was Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and John Fitzgerald Kennedy; their marriage ceremony signaled the beginning of "Camelot." In Arthurian legend, Camelot was the capital of King Arthur's kingdom; truth and goodness and beauty