NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — What luck!
Rick Gorski walked into a neighbor’s garage sale with $5 in his pocket. And walked out with a piece of history.
Consider that in the last few years, a William Shatner kidney stone sold for $25,000. A Marilyn Monroe X-ray sold for $45,000. And an Elvis Presley belt sold for $66,000.
“Something just told me, I’ve got to go over there,” the unemployed construction worker says of his purchase last fall. “I remember it so vividly.”
He’d already bought a vacuum cleaner and telephone from the couple moving out of state. This time, he spotted a white tuxedo shirt with a sign: Frank Sinatra’s Shirt.
Lucinda, how do you know that’s a Frank Sinatra shirt?
She lifted one corner of the shirttail.
“Frank Sinatra Feb. 1987,” was stitched next to “Nat Wise of London ... Sunset Strip, Calif.”
How much?
For you, Rick, five dollars.
That was almost a year ago. Ever since, Gorski, 56, of Newport Beach has tried to sell it - with no luck. Strange as it sounds, he almost feels stuck with it.
“I’m in a pickle,” he says.
SAME QUESTION
When Gorski told anyone he had a Sinatra shirt, they asked: How do you know?
He finally phoned one of the most famous ateliers in the world: Anto Distinctive Shirtmakers in Beverly Hills. Past clients include President Ronald Reagan, Mick Jagger ... and Frank Sinatra.
“We did the Titanic shirt for Leonardo [DiCaprio],” says Anto’s son Jack Sepetjian, who now runs the shop with brother Ken. “That tuxedo shirt sold for $10,000 in auction. And the shirt from Brokeback Mountain, that sold for $100,000.”
The Sepetjians merged with Nat Wise in 1987 and have records, in a vault, dating to 1955.
Want to know how many buttons Jerry Lewis liked on his polysilk pullovers? Eleven, on a lace-edged placket. Dean Martin’s preferred collars? Button-down roll collar using Swiss voile fabrics. Johnny Cash’s choice of fabrics? Silk crepe de Chine and 4-ply silks.
“We know what Frank [Sinatra] wore in the ’60s,” Sepetjian says. “What style.What fabric. We have it in the archives.”
He dug out the records as Gorski dug out a tape measure and magnifying glass.
Tag, two inches from bottom? Seven buttonholes and two in the French cuff? Gathered sleeves? Doublestitched placket?
He had Gorski measure the pleated breastplate and width of each diagonal pleat.
“It’s Frank’s shirt,” Sepetjian says.
In the year following February 1987, Sinatra performed 80 concerts - from Carnegie Hall to an Italian opera house. Chances are, he performed in the shirt now in Gorski’s hands. Several times.
WHAT’S IT WORTH?
For that, we turn to Julien’s Auctions, the world’s largest entertainment auction house.
They sold a tuxedo worn by Dean Martin for $20,000. A jacket worn by Kurt Cobain for $87,000. And a little glove worn by Michael Jackson for $350,000!
“He’s done the hardest part,” says president Darren Julien. “That’s finding out if it’s authentic with the people that made the shirt.”
Still, that’s no up-front guarantee of a big payday.
Take, for example, Marilyn Monroe’s chest X-ray.
Way back in 2002, Julien met the X-ray’s owner (daughter of Monroe’s former gynecologist), who balked at Julien’s conservative estimate of $800-$1,200.
I really think it needs to bring $5,000, he recalls her saying.
To which he replied: “You’re crazy if you think it’ll ever do over $5,000!”
Last month, she finally relented, and Julien auctioned it in Las Vegas - for $45,000.
Auction houses list conservative estimates for celebrity memorabilia to ensure interested buyers. An item listed at $800-$1,200 may fetch $45,000. Or it might fetch $800.
That’s the gamble. And that’s the pickle Gorski is in.
TRACKING IT DOWNM
He found two photographs of Sinatra wearing what appears to be this shirt (rare, with its diagonal pleats). One, while receiving an NAACP lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles in May 1987. And one while singing with Liza Minnelli at U.C. San Diego in January 1988.
“He was smart to do the detective work,” says Julien, adding that photos are key to adding value. “The more information, the more it’s going to sell for.”
Julien once sold a Sinatra jacket, without a photo, for $4,500 and says most Sinatra clothes go between $2,000 and $30,000.
This one?
“I’d estimate $800 to $1,200,” he says. “And it should sell from $2,000 to $6,000.”
He pretty much knows Gorski’s reaction. Same as everyone’s: Oh, I thought it would be worth a lot more.
So let’s see:
“Frank Sinatra is the ultimate American icon,” Gorski says, holding the shirt in front of him before a mirror. “How can a shirt Frank Sinatra owned, one of the rarest he ever had made, be the same price as an autographed photo? It doesn’t make sense.”
That’s why, for now, the shirt hangs in the closet.
And hangs.
Gorski can’t sell it on eBay, he says - too complicated. And won’t sell it through an auction house - too risky. He’s in a pickle.
Would he give it to the Sinatra family?
“If no one buys the shirt,” he says. “I have so much respect for their dad, I’d give it to them.”
All it’d cost him is five bucks.
Northwest Profile, Pages 43 on 07/25/2010