The feeding frenzy on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' estate ended Friday with the sale of her BMW and another presidential rocking chair, adding up to a four-day total of $34.5 million.
The extraordinary estate sale - a gift to her children Jackie had laid out in her will - exceeded Sotheby's expectations by a whopping 650 percent. The auction house's most optimistic projection had been $4.6 million.Of more than 5,000 bits of memor-`O'-bilia, not a single item went unsold.
The oak rocking chair used by President Kennedy on the second floor of the White House sold Friday evening for $453,500 to an unidentified telephone bidder. The presale price was $3,000 to $5,000.
Onassis' 1992 four-door BMW 325i sedan - the very last item on the block - sold for $79,500. It was valued at $18,000 to $22,000.
Sotheby's president Diana Brooks said while crying that the sale's success "belongs to Mrs. Onassis."
"It is her grace and style, her dignity, her courage, that are behind the results of this past week," she said.
Brooks said Onassis' children, John Jr. and Caroline, told her Friday they were "surprised and . . . delighted" with the sale and "pleased so many people were able to be here."
Among the buyers: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is married to JFK's niece, Maria Shriver. He bought JFK's MacGregor Woods golf clubs for $772,500, a Norman Rockwell painting of the president for $134,500, and a leather desk set for $189,500.
It was clear early on that the Onassis sale was boldly going where no one thought it would, despite warnings from experts that most items on the auction block would not appreciate in value.
By the end of day one, buyers had already squandered $4.5 million on another presidential rocking chair ($442,500); a high chair used by JFK Jr. ($85,000); and a rocking horse from Caroline's White House nursery ($85,000).
The bidding escalated as the auction reached its exalted end. A painted model of Air Force One, valued at $500, opened for bidding at $10,000 and sold for $42,500 as the audience erupted in applause.
A set of 22 green tumblers, estimated at $500, instead sold for $38,000. And a $50 mounted picture of Caroline Kennedy's cat, Tom Kitten, brought $13,000.
"Truly, there's only one opportunity to do this," said buyer Don Carter, who picked up a half-dozen items. "There will never be another Jackie Onassis auction."
Carter paid $110,000 - more than 20 times the pre-auction estimate - for a poignantly inscribed Christmas gift, given by the late first lady to her mother and stepfather just weeks after her husband's assassination.
"For Mommy and Uncle Hugh, Jack was going to give you this for Christmas - Please accept it now from me - With all my love, Jackie, December 1963," the inscription read. It was inside a rare, bound collection of every presidential inaugural address from George Washington through Kennedy.
A maple work table, decorated with painted yellow flowers and once used in a White House sitting room, sold for $63,000; its estimated value was $2,000. A collection of 250 magazines collected by Onassis from the 1960s through the '80s brought $11,000; its presale value was $200.
The highest-priced item was a 40-carat diamond ring - an engagement present from Aristotle Onassis - that sold Wednesday for $2.59 million to H.J. Heinz chairman and chief executive Anthony J.F. O'Reilly. Its presale value was $500,000 to $600,000.
The White House, using private donations, could afford just a single purchase: $14,000 for an original drawing of an 1860 reception in the Blue Room.
Curators of the White House collection also bid on the antique desk on which Kennedy signed the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty but couldn't afford it. The desk went for $1.43 million.
The auction was conducted in accordance with Jackie Onassis' will, which directed her children and the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston to keep whatever they wanted and sell the rest of her possessions. Onassis died in 1994; the proceeds will go to her estate.
If the Internal Revenue Service taxes the auction proceeds as inheritance, the taxes will be 55 percent of the take. If it taxes the proceeds as capital gains, taxes will be 28 percent.
Sotheby's commission is 15 percent of the first $50,000 and 10 percent of anything above that amount.