Feb 17, 2007 6:09 pm US/Central
$3M Bid For Oswald's Sniper's Perch Falls Through
DALLAS (AP) ―
The auction of a window said to be Lee Harvey Oswald's sniper perch in the killing of President John F. Kennedy ended with a bid of about $3 million, but the deal fell through about an hour later.
The perch was up for auction on eBay Friday with a starting price of $100,000, which quickly got up to seven figures. But 32 bids were either retracted by the bidder -- normally because the wrong price had been entered, including one for $17 million -- or canceled by the seller because the bidder didn't meet the qualifications.
Then, it turned out that the winner "didn't have the cash," said Fred McLane, a business representative for owner Caruth Byrd.
"This guy slipped into the bidding in the last minute. But he didn't have the money," McLane told The Dallas Morning News for its Saturday editions.
Byrd is the son of the man who owned the Texas School Book Depository when Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. Weeks after the assassination, Col. D. Harold Byrd ordered employees to remove the window. He then kept it in his home for more than two decades before his death in 1986.
His son, Caruth, took it to his home and later lent it to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where it was displayed for 12 years.
The winning bidder for the window was from the Netherlands and had only six purchases on eBay. He placed his bid 22 seconds before the auction ended.
"Unfortunately, on certain high-profile items, this can happen," said Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay. "It's unfortunate. It's also illegal and considered fraud."
The listed seller, McLane's nephew Christian, initially required bidders to have at least three eBay transactions on their record and no worse than a 97 percent approval rating. He later increased that to 20 transactions and an approval rating no worse than 98 percent.
With six transactions, the winner didn't qualify. But by bidding late, there wasn't time for the seller to cancel the bid.
Byrd said that the next step is to work down the list of qualified bidders to see if any want to purchase the window. That could take a day or two.
Some people question whether the window is authentic, including a Nashville man who bought the building in 1970 and said he took the window with him when he lost the property to foreclosure.
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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