Elvis Presley's custom-made mink coat sells for £128,000
It’ll go with your blue suede shoes! Elvis Presley’s custom-made mink coat which he wore in the last year of his life sells for £128,000 – more than TEN TIMES what it went on sale for
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A custom-made mink coat worn by Elvis Presley during the last year of his life has sold for more than £100,000 at auction.
The famous garment was purchased for £128,000 by a US collector when it went under the hammer at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire.
The whopping sale price is more than ten times what it originally went on sale for in July.
The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll rummaged through his closet at Graceland and picked it out for his fiancee’s brother shortly before he died in 1977.
Elvis was romantically involved with 20-year-old Ginger Alden and wanted her brother Mike Alden to have the coat because he was fond of him.
The coat was sold for £128,000 to a US collector when it went under the hammer at the auction house in Devizes, Wiltshire
The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll rummaged through his closet at Graceland and picked it out for his fiancee’s brother shortly before he died in 1977
The custom-made mink and leather coat belonging to Elvis Presley during the last year of his life
He also intended to hire him as his bodyguard before his sudden passing aged 42.
Mr Alden treasured the jacket, which is one metre and 20cm in length, for a number of years before donating it to a nationwide raffle.
The 47ins long jacket has a leather collar, shoulders and pockets, with eight buttons at the front.
READ MORE: Lisa Marie Presley’s former Calabasas home sold for $4.7million
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It is sold with a letter of provenance from Rosemary Starkey, Mike’s sister.
She wrote: ‘This mink jacket is authentic and was given to my brother Mike Alden who is also a brother to my sister Ginger Alden who was Elvis’s fiancee at the time of his death.
‘One night while my sister Ginger was at Graceland visiting, Elvis decided to go through his closet and asked Ginger if he thought that Mike could wear this mink jacket as my brother was about the same size of Elvis and Elvis wanted to give it to him as he was very fond of Mike.
‘Elvis had also planned on hiring our brother Mike to be his personal bodyguard as he was going to replace a couple of the ones he had working for him.
‘However, Elvis died before he could hire Mike. I remember Elvis wearing this mink jacket the last year of his life as he wore it when he came over to our home on occasional visits.
‘My brother Mike treasured this mink jacket for a number of years before he decided to donate it for a nationwide raffle.’
Elvis and Ginger dated for six months before his death after meeting through her father, who was a pilot for the superstar’s personal aircraft fleet.
Elvis Presley’s custom-made mink and leather coat which he wore in the final months of his life originally emerged for sale for £15,000
Elvis Presley with his girlfriend Ginger Alden in March of 1977 in Hawaii
Elvis sings on stage in a rhinestone-studded suit during a performance in 1975
Presley pictured wearing his mink overcoat which just sold
The singer proposed to Ginger and even gave her an engagement ring, although his friends later said he never had any intention of marrying again after his divorce from first wife Priscilla.
Alden was the last person to see Elvis alive. She found him dead on his bathroom floor at Graceland on August 16, 1977. The superstar performer had suffered a heart attack.
The items have been consigned for sale from a UK private collector who was amassed an impressive array of Elvis memorabilia.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ‘For me it encapsulates the glamour of 1970s Vegas, Elvis in a mink coat.
‘It went to a collector in the USA and was underbid by a collector here in the UK.’
Earlier today it was announced that Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough has been named the sole trustee of the family estate and now owns Graceland, after a battle with her grandma Priscilla.
The appointment was approved during a hearing earlier today before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lynn Healey Scaduto, Deadline reported.
Her grandmother Priscilla Presley had filed a petition to challenge the validity of her late daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s will in January.
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