Own a Part of History
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:27 pm
If your bank roll is big enough that is.
DallasMorning News wrote:Gun Jack Ruby used to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald is for sale
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... a.html?npc
12:34 PM CST on Tuesday, March 4, 2008
By DAVID FLICK / The Dallas Morning News
dflick@dallasnews.com
Jack Ruby’s .38-caliber Colt Cobra is up for sale for only the second time since the Dallas nightclub owner used it to kill presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
If you’re interested in bidding, check your bank account first.
The current owner, Florida real estate developer Anthony Pugliese III, declined to divulge his reserve price, other than to say it is at least $1 million. The weapon cost Ruby $62.50 when he purchased it in a West Dallas gun shop in 1960.
Mr. Pugliese, who bought the gun for $220,000 in 1991, is happy to talk about almost everything else.
“It’s a matter of passion,� he said, explaining why he is selling the weapon. “If I do something, it’s matter of passion, and now I have a new passion.�
The new passion is to build a 64-square-mile bio-sustainable city in Central Florida.
His old passion was obtaining 900 collectibles. Besides the Ruby gun, other artifacts that he kept in a 1,000-square-foot vault included the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, the white jacket worn by John Lennon on the cover of the Abbey Road album and an epoxy bird statue that was the center of intrigue in the movie Maltese Falcon.
About 150 items in the Pugliese Pop Culture Collection, which will go on the auction block March 15-16 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, are associated with President John F. Kennedy or his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.
Others range from a wooden humidor from President Kennedy’s desk to the toe tag attached to Oswald’s body after his murder by Ruby.
But it is the gun that has brought Mr. Pugliese the most publicity since he purchased it in a media-frenzied new York auction. Much of the attention has been unwanted.
News stories at the time said the gun was purchased by an unidentified “mystery buyer� represented by an employee named Fred Roman.
In fact, Mr. Pugliese said, he was both the buyer and “Fred Roman.�
“I was surrounded by all these reporters and I was covering my face with a bid card,� he recalled in an interview this week. “When they asked his name, I just made up the first name I could think of.�
