LITTLE ROCK — When Dr. Billy M. Chandler was hit in the face in 1972 with a jacket worn by Elvis Presley, he had no idea it would one day be worth almost $60,000.
The jacket, white with a stand-up collar and gold lame pocket flaps, hung in the back of the Little Rock ophthalmologist’s closet for 43 years
— coming out occasionally so friends and relatives could try it on.
That is until his son, Mitch, took it to Antiques Roadshow when the PBS series visited Little Rock in July. Appraisers there valued the jacket at between $30,000 and $80,000.
After learning the potential value, the Chandler family sent the jacket to Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, where it ended up as part of the Nov. 7 Icons and Idols Rock ’N’ Roll auction. An unknown buyer bought it for $59,385, which includes a 25 percent premium paid by the buyer.
“Mitch always wanted to know what it was worth. I don’t miss it because I was never really enamoured with it,” the doctor says. “It was just a plain white coat with gold labels on the side pockets. … It was a good souvenir for me, but I never really thought it was valuable.”
But he does like telling the story of how he got it.
Chandler and his wife, Mildred, went to an Elvis concert during the summer of 1972 at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. By then, the Chandlers had seen Elvis in concert several times.
Toward the end of the show, Elvis removed a gold cape that was attached to the jacket and threw it into the audience. Chandler watched as two men fought over the cape.
“I raised up to look at the fight and the coat just hit me in the face,” Chandler says. “I don’t know what part of it hit me, but it was like someone hit me with a fist. It actually cut my lip.”
One of the sleeves of the jacket was over his shoulder and the other was under his arm. He sat down and felt for the cut on his lip.
“And then two women jumped on my back and started pulling the sleeves,” he says. “I leaned forward and trapped the coat in my lap. It took a couple of minutes, it felt like forever, and [hotel staff] pulled the women off of me.”
One of the women had ripped three gold buttons off one of the sleeves. The other woman went away empty handed.
“I sat there for a while. I was really concerned because I had blood on my hands. I was more concerned about my face than the coat.”
After the commotion died down, the Chandlers made their way back to their hotel room. The next morning, he put the jacket in his suitcase and flew back to Little Rock.
“When we got home, for about the first two months, friends and family wanted to see it and I would pull it out and let them try it on,” he says. “Then after everyone had seen it, I put it in the back of my closet. … I didn’t think about it for six or seven years. I didn’t even notice it.”
Mitch wore the jacket to school one time and got chocolate ice cream on the sleeve, Billy says. A smudge of chocolate is still visible.
After the family decided to put it up for auction, Billy realized he had never tried on the jacket. He found it to be an exact fit.
“And I thought I must be a hunka, hunka burning love,” he says. Besides coat size, Billy also shares the same birth year with Elvis — 1935. Chandler turned 80 two days after the Julien’s auction.
GOING TO CALIFORNIA
The family sent the jacket to the Beverly Hills auction house. It became auction item No. 117 of 321 rock ’n’ roll items. The auction included a John Lennon guitar ($2.41 million), a Beatles bass drum head with the band’s logo ($2.125 million), Elvis’ gold leaf piano ($600,000) and Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain’s cardigan sweater ($137,500).
The Chandler family watched the auction live through an online feed.
After pre-auction bidding, the jacket opened at a starting price of $35,000.
The auction lasted one minute and 47 seconds. After a few bids, it closed at $47,500. After the buyer’s premium was tacked on, the final price was $59,385.
After the auction house took its cut, Billy ended up with about $38,000 for a jacket that hit him in the head.