The lots were sold over a four-day period from 23 to 26 April 1996 across nine separate sessions. Space in the sale room was limited to about 2,000 potential buyers a day. Sotheby’s anticipated that the auction would raise more than $4.6m ($9.4m or \u00a37m today). By the time the BBC reported on day two of the auction, that estimate had shot up.<\/p>\n
According to the BBC’s Sam Jaffa, “The most costly items were those intimately associated with the White House years.” A child’s rocking horse that was priced at $75,000 went for $400,000 ($820,000 or \u00a3600,000 today). “Never in their wildest dreams could anyone from Sotheby’s have imagined the success of this sale,” he said. Bargains were few. The lowest price<\/a> paid was $1,250 for six books about Asia. A three-string necklace of fake pearls<\/a>, shown in a famous 1962 photograph of Jackie with her toddler son John tugging at them, was estimated at $500-$700. It went for $211,500. Her cigarette lighter, expected to reach $300, went for $85,000. The textbook with the clothes doodles fetched $42,500 ($87,000 or \u00a364,000 today).<\/p>\n More like this:<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0The fatal accident that haunted Ted Kennedy’s life<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0The untold story of Princess Margaret’s first love<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0How the killing of Malcolm X shook the US<\/a><\/p>\n The item that raised the biggest price was her enormous engagement ring, which went for $2.6m ($5.3m or \u00a34m today). Cut from the 601-carat Lesotho III diamond, it was bought by Anthony O’Reilly<\/a>, billionaire chairman of the Heinz food group, who the New York tabloids swiftly labelled the Ketchup King. O’Reilly decided to buy the diamond for his wife Cryss, herself a member of a Greek shipping family, after seeing it in a newspaper. The second highest price was $1.3m ($2.7m or \u00a32m today), paid for the antique French desk where President Kennedy signed the partial nuclear test ban treaty in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n