Lincoln Foundation’s Marilyn Monroe dress sells for $50,000

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation’s unusual ownership of a black dress once belonging to movie star Marilyn Monroe is ending as it sold over the weekend for $50,000.

The dress was among several items that the Springfield, Illinois, foundation put up for auction in Las Vegas. Darren Julien of Julien’s Auctions tells The Chicago Tribune that the dress sold for near its estimated price. Seven photographs of Monroe sold for between $1,000 and $3,000 each. Bids for a bust of poet Carl Sandburg didn’t reach the foundation’s minimum.

The money will help repay $10 million the foundation owes on a 2007 loan for buying a collection that included the Monroe items along with others purportedly belonging to Lincoln, including a stovepipe hat, bloodstained gloves and an 1824 book.

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Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com