Alexander Autographs auctioned off a gold Rolex wristwatch inscribed with a message from Marilyn Monroe to President John F. Kennedy. The message reads: JACK, With love as always, from MARILYN May 29, 1962, only ten days after her famous "Happy Birthday" performance at Madison Square Garden. Included in the watch case is a poem from Monroe to Kennedy ending with a passionate plea: "Let me love or let me die!" The watch and accompanying items sold for $120,000 to an anonymous East Coast collector.[1]
Alexander Autographs was forced to withdraw a letter it was auctioning, purporting to be from Ronald Reagan and written during the President's later years while he suffered with Alzheimer's. The letter's content—hand-written annotations and references to the disease, was reported upon by CBS News, U.S. News & World Report, and other media. Bill Panagopulos, company president, withdrew the item when it was discovered to have been forged and advised the press that he had been "duped" by a forger.[2]
Alexander Autographs found itself embroiled in a row with eBay, the online auction house, when eBay refused to run Alexander's Nazi and other German World War II items on its website. Alexander's complied, but issued a statement on its own website adding that, "Though these items are indeed controversial, we maintain that they are of vital historic importance and cannot and must not be ignored."[3]
Alexander Autographs received news coverage when the company announced plans to auction two particular items in the November 6–7 auction: the flight suit of Paul Tibbets[4] and secret audio tapes from Jack Ruby's legal defense team.[5] Tibbets, a colonel during World War II, flew the Hiroshima bombing mission—the auction house offered the very suit he wore on that mission[6] and the Distinguished Service Cross Tibbets earned for his actions.[7] Additionally, Alexander's uncovered taped conversations between Ruby's defense team, including attorney Melvin Belli, that called into question Ruby's contention that Oswald's murder was an unintentional act.
Alexander Autographs sold a 180-page volume of notorious German Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's diary at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals."[8]
A further 31 volumes of Josef Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by Alexander Autographs to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia, described as an ultra-orthodox Jew, for $245,000. The journals cover a period from 1960 to 1975 when Mengele was living in South America.[9]
In 2022, Alexander Historical Auctions, a company headed by the same president as Alexander Autographs, auctioned off Nazi memorabilia including a gold watch presented to Hitler valued at $2 million. A number of prominent Jewish leaders across Europe signed a letter urging the company to cancel the auction.[10]