Going, Going, Gone: A first lady’s faux pearls.

I t is not often that an entry ticket takes the form of a 584-page auction catalog. But given the scale of interest in this landmark sale, Sotheby’s decided that a lottery—bundled with the purchase of this weighty tome—would be the fairest system for public admission. On the catalog’s first day on sale, 27,000 orders were taken by phone for the $90 hardcover and $45 paperback.

Visitors from around the world were granted one-hour slots to bask in U.S. history, surrounded by artifacts such as the Louis XVI desk used by President Kennedy to sign the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty and paintings by Sargent and Rauschenberg.

Among the more personal effects was a triple strand of faux pearls worn by Jackie Kennedy during her White House tenure and captured in countless photographs. Against an estimate of $500-$700, it sold to the Franklin Mint for $211,500.

Drawing on enduring affection for Jackie, the collectibles company went on to sell more than 130,000 reproductions of the pearls before donating the original to the nation in 2005. The necklace fittingly resides today in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.