King’s Ransom : Collectors Pay Top Dollar for Elvis Artifacts at Major Las Vegas Auction

The King is dead, long live His Stuff!

A computer chip manufacturer paid $320,500 this weekend for Elvis Presley’s stretch Mercedes-Benz limousine--after having deposited $1 million with the auction house in case the bidding went that high.

Others paid $68,500 for Elvis’ royal blue, silver-studded performance jumpsuit. And $2,070 for Elvis’ navy blue denim swim trunks (size 38 waist), and $1,035 for a stained, diagonally striped, white-gray-and-black tie that the King had worn and slopped on, and $34,500 for Elvis’ personal, Giannini acoustic guitar.

His pajama bottoms went for $2,250, his comb for $950 and his gold necklace, with trademark TCB (Taking Care of Business) logo and lightning bolt, for $55,000.

But for just $425, Pat and Michele Vodrey of Garden Grove successfully bid on exactly what they came for, and could afford: three Elvis 45s on the Sun label, including a prized, blue vinyl copy of “Hound Dog” with “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” on the flip side.

“We love Elvis!” Michele gushed as she paid the cashier. “We’re going to get rid of the family portrait and hang these right over the couch.”

And so it went Saturday and Sunday at the Las Vegas Hilton, an old Elvis haunt where the largest assemblage ever of the rock ‘n’ roll icon’s personal articles and career artifacts went on the auction block, teasing small fans and major collectors alike from throughout the world.

Robert Hammond was dispatched from Boston by his wife, who was unable to travel. But as the editor of an Elvis Presley fan club newsletter, she wanted to get in on the action. “See everything (in the auction catalogue) marked with an X? Those are all the things she wants,” Hammond said. “My wife, she’s an extreme fool.”

Despite concerns that he couldn’t afford anything, by Sunday night Hammond had two items to take home: a gold medal identification card once carried by an Elvis aide ($600), and a tiny piece of gold bedroom carpeting ($300).

Though he was confident that his wife would view them as prizes, Hammond made clear where he stood. “At that price, I think it comes out to $15,000 per square yard,” he said. “I feel like a jackass.”

Linda Bergstrom, who came from Chicago, was the elated buyer of a gilt-metal inkstand-penholder that Elvis used as a pipe stand. Its value was estimated at $150 in the auction catalogue; her winning bid was $1,400.

“I’ll keep it in my bedroom,” she said. “Aside from the bedroom set, it’ll be the most expensive thing in there. My husband’s going to freak, but he owes it to me.”

Michelle DeMoss came from Northridge, to restart an Elvis collection that was destroyed in the January earthquake. She got $2,500 from her insurance company for the lost Elvis collectibles--and used it to buy a 45 record autographed by Elvis ($1,400), a set of Elvis pencils and a pen ($150) and a black ceramic ashtray ($1,100) used in an upstairs office at Graceland, Elvis’ Memphis mansion.

“I’ve got better stuff now than I did before the earthquake,” DeMoss cooed. “These are things he actually owned or autographed.”

Radio station owner Dave Schnehrer flew out from Flint, Mich. to buy Elvis’ sunglasses. They cost him $3,100. “I think they were the ones Elvis was wearing in the last photograph ever taken of him,” he said. “I hope nobody sits on them.”

Author Patricia Jobe Pierce snatched up two of Elvis’ rings for about $10,000. The one with the tiger eye setting, she said, “is his essence.”

After paying for them, she immediately put them on her fingers. “They fit!” she proclaimed.

More than 1,000 people bid on the collection, said Pamela Tapp, spokeswoman for Butterfield & Butterfield, the Los Angeles auction house that staged the event. About half of the participants attended the auction here, where Elvis performed between 1969 and 1976 before 2 1/2 million fans. Another 500 or so people--many from overseas and reportedly including Ringo Starr--bid through telephone banks operated in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The unloading of the Elvis collectibles was a bittersweet experience for Jimmy Velvet, the 1950s songwriter and singer who befriended Elvis in 1956. Velvet opened his Elvis Presley Museum in 1978, the year after the King died.

Over the years Velvet had acquired about 800 Elvis collectibles from members of Presley’s family and entourage. Since he has opened other celebrity-item museums, Velvet decided to keep his 200 favorite Elvis items and sell the rest.

By Sunday evening, 560 items had sold, bringing Velvet $2 million and change in gross sales.

The highest-ticket item: the 1969 Mercedes-Benz six-door Pullman limousine, which Presley rented once while on tour, fell in love with and insisted on buying. His former road manager, Joe Esposito--who attended the auction for old time’s sake--said Elvis paid about $40,000 for the vehicle, after promising the limo company that it could still use the Mercedes when he wasn’t in town. But Elvis reneged on his promise and kept the limo for himself, Esposito said.

Car collector Edward Arnold, chairman and chief executive officer of Integrated Circuit Systems, came to Las Vegas from Valley Forge, Pa., intent on buying the vehicle. And he did.

No one topped his last bid of $290,000--on which another 15% was added for the auction house’s piece of the action. “It’s a thrill, guys, I swear!” Arnold bubbled after the auction hammer was banged down.

On the other side of the room, Jimmy Velvet could only wonder how much more money he could have made. “I knew he had deposited a million dollars to buy the car. He got it for a steal. I could have had someone bid against him (to drive the price up) but that wouldn’t have been right. I feel like I lost $700,000.”

But Arnold found a way to spend his savings; later he bought Elvis’ 1977 Cadillac Seville--driven by Elvis the day before he died--with a $90,000 bid.

For every millionaire in the crowd, there was an Elvis impersonator--or, more accurately, an impersonator of an Elvis impersonator. Johnny Wentzel--wearing a macrame rope belt, white jumpsuit and bushy sideburns--paced the auction floor, hoping to find an affordable Elvis jumpsuit.

“I make my own jumpsuits--you can’t tell the difference between mine and Elvis’--but I want one of his to use as a pattern,” Wentzel said. “There are 30 to 40 working Elvis impersonators in town, you know.” And their waist sizes range from 30 inches to 40 inches, he added.

While some Elvis collectors clearly came here to purchase specific items, others were caught up in the moment. John Corbett, one of the stars of the popular television series “Northern Exposure,” showed up at the auction out of curiosity and ended up successfully bidding $36,000 for Elvis’ American Express card and $60,000 for Elvis’ birth record document.

“The spirit of Elvis must have jumped in me,” Corbett said afterward. “Until now, the only Elvis things I had was one of his Christmas albums and his ‘Aloha from Hawaii’--via satellite--tape. But I love Elvis.”

Corbett said he wouldn’t leave home without Elvis’ American Express card.