LOS ANGELES — The simple wooden coffin that was supposed to be Lee Harvey Oswald’s final resting place will soon have a new resting place of its own after a mystery bidder bought it at auction for more than $87,000.
The coffin was put on the block late last month by a Texas funeral home owner who swapped it with Oswald’s family for a new one when Oswald’s body was briefly exhumed in 1981.
It sold Thursday evening for $87,469, which includes a 20 percent buyer’s fee.
“Anything connected to the JFK assassination sells for really high,’’ said Nate D. Sanders of Nate D. Sanders Auctions in Santa Monica.
He declined to provide details on the winning bidder.
The auction was extended two hours because of a last-minute rush of bidding. Sanders said two bidders battled until the end.
Oswald was arrested in President Kennedy’s 1963 death but was slain two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Funeral home owner Allen Baumgardner had held onto the coffin since Oswald’s body was dug up in 1981 in an effort to put to rest conspiracy theories that he wasn’t buried in his grave.
After the body was identified through dental records, it was returned to Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park in Fort Worth, Texas.
Because water had gotten into a cracked burial vault and damaged the original coffin, Baumgardner swapped it with Oswald’s family for a new one.
The original shows signs of the water damage.
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