Someone from Mississippi state offers highest bid for Elvis Presley's memorabilia

The highest bid was placed by someone from Elvis Presley's home state of Mississippi for memorabilia from a museum devoted to proving that the King is still alive.

Photo: Someone from Mississippi state offers highest bid for Elvis Presley's memorabilia

Someone from Mississippi state offers highest bid for Elvis Presley's memorabilia

The bidder had until the close of business Friday to put up the $8,300 (5,652 EUR) and arrange to pick it up from the Missouri museum, which is shutting down. The auction closed at 5:20 p.m. Thursday.

If the high bidder does not emerge, the museum's proprietor can offer the memorabilia to the second-highest bidder at $8,200 (5,584 EUR). As of Friday afternoon, three e-mails to the high bidder had not been returned.

"He could be a very busy individual and hasn't slowed down or he could be so excited he won he had a heart attack and is in the hospital," said Steve Beeny, the son of museum owner Bill Beeny. "I'm keeping an open mind. Hopefully, he will make contact."

Bill Beeny, 81, placed the memorabilia on eBay late last month. He hoped someone would buy the collection and open a new museum dedicated to the idea that Elvis never died. The collection includes photographs, books, yellowed news clippings and replicas of Elvis' Cadillac and the casket and gravestone from his 1977 funeral - which Beeny believes was a fake.

The Baptist minister founded the quirky museum in 1990. Steve Beeny declined to put a value on his father's collection.

"Value is in the eye of the beholder," he said. "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

He said Bill Beeny would have liked the museum to stay in the family but all of his six kids "have real life going on."

"I'm sure there's some regret there," Steve Beeny added. "But he's always been one to look forward and not look back. It's bittersweet. It's kept us entertained through the years."