Sotheby’s anticipates the collection will sell for between $15 million and $30 million. It appraised the papers at $30 million in the late 1990s, according to the June 9 New York Times. However, Association of Research Libraries President Brian Schottlaender told the paper, “I would be stunned if they could command that sort of price, and I would be even more stunned if they command that from a library.”
“I’m really on tenterhooks about it,” said King biographer Taylor Branch. “Because it’ll wind up in a library or it’ll wind up dispersed.”
The collection includes more than 7,000 items from King’s college years through his 1968 assassination, including his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize lecture and an early draft of his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. The collection will be exhibited in Sotheby’s galleries June 21–29.
Posted June 9, 2006.