10 Weirdest Elvis Memorabilia

10 Weirdest Elvis Presley Memorabilia

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Phil Arnold |

It would be impossible to come up with new, if there was a Guinness World Record for the most different Elvis searches.

The cool thing is that you never know what you’ll find if you scroll down the search results far enough.

For example, how about this photo?

When I clicked on the picture above, I linked to this:

Have you ever heard of Wikicollecting? It’s a new one to me. Like everything else on Wikipedia, Wikicollecting lets anybody post, update, edit, and illustrate any topic. So there is no way of knowing who created “The Top 10 Weirdest Elvis Collectibles” in 2012, and named the x-ray images above as the sixth weirdest. 
Whoever it was, they actually listed eleven items, including an honourable mention (looks like our list provider is from England, or at least doesn’t know how to spell honorable). He provided pictures of just four of the eleven items, and they were all rather small and posted out of sequence. So, here is the Wikicollecting list “The Top 10 Weirdest Elvis Memorabilia,” with additional text and images thanks to the magic of Google.

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Honorable Mention —  Medical Swab:

A medical swab used on Elvis was sold by Julien’s Auctions for $468.75 in 2010.  The swab was taken at the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis on December 20, 1967 and was obtained by a medical technician at the hospital.

# 10  —  Signed Cast:

A cast signed by the King of Rock and Roll is being offered for sale by Elvisowned.com, a company specializing in the sale of items once owned by Elvis Presley. The asking price is $1,700. The cast belonged to fan Diana Henry who saw Elvis in concert in the Las Vegas Hilton in 1975. According to the website Elvis stopped his show and went into the crowd to sign Diana’s cast.

You will note that Elvis signed the cast twice. That’s because a drop of Elvis’ sweat fell on the autograph below the elbow and smudged his last name. Diana begged Elvis to sign it a second time, which he did.

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# 9  –  Strand of Hair:

(Could not find a picture of this one)

A single strand of Elvis’ hair was sold for $1,700 at a Henry Aldridge & Son auction in 2009.

The auction house said the strand was owned by Thomas B. Morgan Jr., an Elvis fan and former administrator at Shelby County sheriff’s office. Morgan told auctioneers he received the hair follicle from Homer Gilleland, Elvis’ personal Hairdresser for more than 20 years.

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# 8  —  Horse Blanket:

Another item available from ElvisOwned.com is a red horse blanket used by Elvis for his horse Rising Sun and his black horse. It was also used on Priscilla Presley’s horse and the website claims that hairs from the horses are still visible on the blanket. It has been in storage since 1977 and is offered at a price $1800.

Elvis’ cousin Harold Lloyd gave this to his friend Rhonda in 1977. Rhonda’s sister dated Charlie Hodge for almost 4 years. Rhonda is in the background of the last picture taken of Elvis Presley returning home from the dentist in the morning hours of his death. She had actually stopped by to see Harold when Elvis came home for his last time.

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# 7 — TV Remote:

(Could not find a picture of this one)

Elvis’ TV remote is being offered for sale by ElvisOwned.com for $1,800. The large remote, for an RCA 2000 television set, was owned by Greg Page, who owned the television after Elvis.

This remote must have sold since the Wikicollecting list was published, and its listing and picture disappeared from the website. Even the magic of Google search couldn’t come up with a photo of it.

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# 6 — Wrist X-ray:

A set of x-rays of Elvis’ arm sold for $3.500 at a Farm Bureau auction in 2008. The x-rays showed a wrist fracture that Elvis suffered during a karate session.

# 5 — Benadryl Prescription Bottle:

A prescription bottle for Benadryl 50mg, prescribed to Elvis Presley on 8/15/77 sold for $7000 at a Julien’s Auctions sale in 2009. The bottle was prescribed by Elvis’ personal physician, Dr. Nick (Dr. George C. Nichopoulas) the day before Elvis’ death.

# 4 — Dental Crown:

Elvis Presley’s porcelain dental crown, which came to be known as the ‘King’s Crown’, was bought by a dentist for $8,150 at Omega Auctions in March 2012. Presley had a gap between his teeth, which he found embarrassing. He decided to have one of his front teeth crowned to hide it. This crown was created by Henry Weiss, Presley’s dentist until 1971.

Weiss always kept an extra copy of the crown. When Elvis cracked his crown on a microphone during a performance, Weiss’s son, S. Lewis Weiss, flew the replacement crown to Las Vegas.

# 3 — Exercise Bike:

An exercise bike owned by Elvis was sold by Guerney’s Auctions in 2008 for $12,000.

The gold exercise bike has a tension control knob and speedometer/odometer between handlebars. Odometer reads 69 miles. Manufactured by Barkleigh. In fine condition, with some light wear, the bike was accompanied by a COA from Greg Howell, the exhibition and collection manager of Graceland.

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# 2 — Autopsy and Embalming Tools:

In 2010, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers announced that it planned to sell the autopsy and embalming tools used on Elvis. The tools were offered for sale by an anonymous retired embalmer from the Memphis Funeral Home, and they were expected to bring $14,000. Shortly after the planned sale was announced, the parent company of the funeral home, Service Corporation International, claimed ownership of the tools. Due to this dispute over ownership, the items were withdrawn from the sale and have not appeared on the collectors’ market since.

Leslie Hindman Auctioneers had two lots of Elvis’ funereal memorabilia slated for the auction, including funeral invoices, a toe tag once attached to the King’s corpse, embalming needles, forceps, lip brushes, needle injectors, an arterial tub, and an eyeliner pencil allegedly used to prepare the body for the funeral.

The embalmer said he kept the items after embalming Elvis the night of Aug. 17, 1977. Service Corporation International, the corporate parent of Memphis Funeral Home, had questioned the authenticity of the items and said the embalmer had no right to take them from the business. “Rather than argue with anyone, it’s better to just withdraw the item,”

My Google Images search did not come up with a photo of toe tag, actually marked “John Doe.” This was used as a replacement after the original was stolen by an eager fan during the chaos at the hospital. Unfortunately, the original will probably show up for sale someday.

# 1 — Lockheed Jetstar Jet:

The last jet Elvis ever owned, a 1962 Lockheed Jetstar JT 12-5, was sold for $700,000 in 2008 by Kruse International. During his lifetime, Elvis owned three jets. The other two are in the Graceland Museum.

Okay, that’s what one person calls the ten weirdest Elvis memorabilia. I really don’t see what’s so weird about the TV remote, the horse blanket, or the exercise bike. The weird thing to me is some of the prices mentioned. $468 for the medical swab – you can buy Elvis autographs for less than that. $1,700 for a strand of hair – way too much.

Maybe the signed cast is worth $1,700 – it does have two Elvis autographs on it. I’m not sure about $700,000 for the Jetstar. Maybe if it came with photos of Elvis inside it or standing in front, but think about all the Elvis memorabilia you could buy for that kind of money.

The arm e-rays are certainly weird, as is the replacement tooth crown. And finally, two items are not just weird, but also in horrible taste. How sick is it to spend $7,000 on Elvis’ bottle of Benydryl? And the embalming stuff is just too grisly. I hope that Service Corporation Inonaternatil destroyed them after pulling them from the auction

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