Have you ever wanted to own a piece of American history?
Heritage Auctions is giving the public a chance to do just that as it brings to market pieces from the Melvin “Pete” Mark Jr. Collection on May 7.
Jim Mark said his father began the collection when his mother-in-law gifted a framed letter from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1962. At the time, Pete Mark was in his mid-30s and living in Portland, Oregon.
“Dad didn’t collect these as items to show his friends,” explained Jim Mark. “He would bring people to lunch and explain history like it happened yesterday. If I had a friend come over, he would want to show the collection and talk about the history behind each item, whether it was Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation and why it was important or the Atlantic Charter or the Declaration of Independence.”
Pete Mark became one of the country’s preeminent collectors of presidential artifacts and American historical treasures, with the Oregon Historical Society hosting five different exhibits over the years featuring items from the Mark Family Collection.
The prominent real estate executive was also one of Portland’s most prominent philanthropists when he died in 2017.
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Among the collection’s prized pieces that are up for auction are the Mount Vernon Landscape Plan, written by George Washington, and the only copy of the Atlantic Charter signed by FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Those items and 106 more, including Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 2-star signature jacket and overseas cap donated by Mamie Eisenhower and Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle’s “post-raid” uniform jacket worn while he was in command of the Eighth Air Force in England in 1944, will be up for bid.
“Every collection has a ‘high point,’ some have a few,” said Heritage Auctions Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena, a longtime friend of the Mark family who helped Pete acquire the treasures beginning in 1987. “Pete’s collection knew nothing but high points. That kind of quality is rare and never an accident. Pete’s philosophy was, ‘If it’s a 10, let’s get it!’”
Letters written between the Eisenhowers will also be available at the auction, as will one of the fewer than 250 surviving Enigma machines that the Germans used to encrypt top-secret messages during World War II.
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The auction also includes a wooden saber and walking stick hand-carved by a young George S. Patton, Jr., along with a 1942 letter from the general to his childhood nurse and governess, Mary Scally, written immediately before he departed for North Africa, advising her that by the time the letter arrived: “I will either be dead or not.”
Jim Mark said the Kennedy collection was something his father was proud of – especially the White House rocking chair made of Carolina Oak Kennedy had crafted in 1961 and later gave to former New York Gov. Averell Harriman, which is up for bid.
The Mark family is keeping 100 items from the collection to use as a rotating display at Melvin Mark Companies headquarters in Portland’s Columbia Square. Each of their children kept a single item. But in keeping with their father and mother’s wishes, the children are selling the collection to support Pete and Mary’s passions, Portland’s history and its arts, and “other causes near and dear to them.”
“I miss my dad every day,” said Jim, who began running the family business in 2000. “I was so blessed. He and I talked all the time, and his wish was we sell the collection when he died, down to 100 items. He would have been very happy we’re supporting his causes. My dad was the eternal optimist. He loved what he did. He loved his family. He loved real estate. And he loved his collection. Not necessarily in that order.”
To learn more about the auction or to place a bid, visit here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.