Elvis Presley’s custom-made mink and leather coat sells for more than £100,000
ELVIS Presley’s custom-made mink and leather coat which he wore during the last year of his life has sold for more than £100,000.
The garment was purchased for £128,000 by a US collector when it went under the hammer at auctioneer’s Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire.
Presley gave the leather and mink jacket, which is one metre and 20cm in length, to the brother of his fiancée Ginger Alden before he died in 1977.
It has leather shoulders, collar, pockets, belt with leather down the undersides of the arms and an eight-button front closure.
It is accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Rosemary Alden Starkey, who is Ginger Alden’s sister.
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.”
The King had intended to hire Ginger’s brother Mike Alden as his bodyguard before the singer’s sudden death aged 42.
In the letter of provenance, Starkey 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 had met Ginger through her father, who was a pilot for the star’s personal aircraft fleet, and the pair dated for six months before his death on August 16, 1977, at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee.
