NEW YORK
When the collected papers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. go up for auction next week, don’t expect any small-time memorabilia dealers to make bids.
With a pre-sale value between $15 million and $30 million and the King family’s stipulation that the 10,000 items remain in a single collection, the June 30 sale by Sotheby’s auction house is expected to attract academic and civic institutions.
Those expressing interest include a “pan-Atlanta” consortium in the Georgia capital, where King was born and grew up, various universities and libraries, the National Archives and the Library of Congress, Sotheby’s officials said as the collection went on display Wednesday.
The offering presented a challenge to American institutions “to decide whether or not they want to save the King legacy for posterity,” Sotheby’s vice chairman David Redden said.
A previous sale three years ago failed to materialize.
The collection includes manuscripts, speeches, personal correspondence and an array of day-to-day items bearing notations, comments and thoughts by a man who seemingly used every scrap of paper and never threw any of them away.
