John Gacy Covers

I have about a dozen covers with letters inside from John Gacy as the sender. (Also a couple of Christmas cards.) It's a prison stamp on the envelope. If I ever decided to sell them, which auction house handles that stuff?

Ummmm.... maybe Satan has an auction house.

I know Johnny Depp and Stephen King collect his artwork (if you can call it that). I figured there must be some auction place that handles weird stuff, and since these ARE covers... If I remember correctly, the stamp is embossed on the envelope.

Considering the era, these will not be of much interest to a philatelist, but would be of interest to someone who collects crime-related, or deranged clown ephemera. Try searching the internet for strange or bizarre collectables.

If the letters are authentic, they could have considerable value to the right collector.

Brian

Could I bother you for an image/scan of said cover(s) please? It sounds rather macabre but interesting.

Thanks, Brian. I know collectors of the grotesque would pay tall dollars for the letters and his signature. I just wondered how the stamp world handled bizarre covers.

I'll have to hook up my printer/scanner, which might take me some time. I recently moved and am not completely unpacked yet. In fact, I'll also have to locate the letters; I think I know which box they're in (I had 94 boxes). I collect all sorts of stuff, so unpacking is a full time job.

I thought of you when I read this article, this morning. It's clear there's a market for your covers & letters.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-hammer.html

Brian

Hi Brian.

Yes, there certainly is a market for the letters, that's why I acquired them back in the early 1990's. I plan on auctioning them someday. I assumed that I'd sell them in their envelopes, but now that I understand covers, I think I'll sell those separately. Thanks for the info about McTear's. I would have been embarrassed to approach Christie's.

A PHD psychologist friend of mine read them and was wowed. Gacy's monstrous, sociopathic personality screams off the page. They're unforgettable, chilling reading. Should bring top dollars. He even had personalized stationery, and he used an old typewriter that was out of alignment.

Something I would love. For some reason I have always been interested in the workings of the minds of serial killers. Please do let us know when and where you decide to auction them off.

Will do. I also have a signed Pogo the clown painting that I'll auction with the letters. (It came with an autographed photograph and letter of authenticity that he typed.) I saw a boring two page Gacy letter on an autographs for sale site that was listed at 8 or 9 hundred dollars. The letters I have are revealing, so I expect an outrageous payday.

A good book is The Fall of the House of Gacy. It's about his parents. His father was violent, so the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Inferior genes passed along -- I wonder what the paternal grandfather was like.

I ordered a new printer/scanner that I'll pick up tomorrow evening. If I can find the letters I'll scan a cover and post it for you.

sorry, but that kind of stuff, should just be burned. All it does is further the memory of a sadistic child killer.

Edited by (Rileysan) as my statement was ... confrontational.

I have to ask, though. Do you collect Third Reich? Think about it ...

I wanna see them! lol this is a creepy subject and SV may be right but then again there is money to be made and the letters can't hurt anyone so it's a niche item.

I actually grew up about 3 miles from the Gacy home and we used to sit out in our cars drinking Beer while watching the property get dug up as it was the most exciting thing to hit the neighborhood ever. As Brian pointed out, it's not much different than having Hitler Stamps in your collection.

I acquired them to make $. I have no emotional attachment to them. If someone buys them and burns them, I won't care.

And no, I don't have any Third Reich memorabilia. However, I do have Hitler stamps in my collection. I also have Andrew Jackson stamps, and he committed genocide on Native Americans. In both cases, they're only stamps. Should we burn our twenty dollar bills because Jackson's portrait is on them?

Rileysan, I don't find anything you said confrontational. They're only words, and words are only sounds. Whether I hear a bird singing or someone scolding me, it's only a sound. Drives my friends crazy, but I studied Zen and can't go back to reacting emotionally. My best friend died a few weeks ago, and thanks to Zen, I was able to accept it without suffering.