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Upwards of $26,000 for a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee with over 85,000 miles might sound like the worst deal ever made on a car, but John Reznikoff "would have been willing to pay over $100,000" for his new vehicle. Of course, the fact that the jeep's previous owner was Barack Obama and Reznikoff is the world's leading dealer in presidential memorabilia might have something to do with his feelings. About a week ago, his was the highest bid at Robert Edwards Auctions in New Jersey where the car Obama drove as an Illinois state senator was on the block. Reznikoff is used to winning items of historical relevance. As the owner of University Archives of Westport, he deals in artifacts, letters and relics from baseball cards to printings of the Declaration of Independence. He caught the collector's bug as a child, he says, when his grandmother (an escapee from Nazi Germany) gave him some rare stamps. His current collection is a shade more impressive: Currently, he owns two of John F. Kennedy's cars, Ernest Hemingway's typewriter, Annie Oakley's gun, Abraham Lincoln's desk and Ronald Reagan's rocking chair, to name just a few pieces - so Obama's jeep was really a must-have at any price. Who cares if it smells like stale cigarette smoke?
Robert Edwards Auctions is donating over $5,000 of the money Reznikoff paid for the jeep to the humanitarian organization CARE. For more information about University Archives, call 203-454-0111.
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