Elkton, Maryland-based Alexander Historical Auctions, known for auctioning historic letters and documents, will put a personal address and telephone book of the late Jeffrey Epstein up for bids.
The auction will be held Friday. Alexander Historical Auctions calls it “one of the most provocative criminal relics of modern times.”
The convicted sex offender’s small, plastic-bound book includes 64 pages, 368 printed entries and two handwritten notes.
The minimum opening bid is $35,000. The auction goes live, in person and online, at 10 a.m. Friday.
It is not the first time the book has been for sale. It has been put up for private sale and drew offers “in the area of $100,000,” according to auctioneer Bill Panagopulos. Those offers were rejected.
The owner prefers the book be passed on to a buyer for research, specifically uncovering Epstein’s alleged ties to foreign intelligence services or governments, Panagopulos said.
Entries in the book include contact information for private residences, aides, employees and others. Many numbers have no names, 94 of the entries have black check marks, and five are highlighted in yellow, according to Alexander Historical Auctions, which says contacts include dozens of people connected to politics, finance, real estate, film, television, law and fashion design.
The book was found in New York on a Fifth Avenue sidewalk in the mid-1990s and has been verified by forensic analysis, Alexander Historical Auctions said.
Epstein was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors in 2019. He died in his jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019.
Alexander Historical Auctions’ other recent auctions have included Oppenheimer’s signed atomic bomb plans, Adolf Hitler’s 1926 income tax return, the Wright Brothers first company check, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s hunting rifle. The auction house has been in business since 1991 and has auctioned off more than 100,000 items.
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