Washington's Hair, JFK's Harvard Sweater Among Presidential Artifacts Up For Auction

BOSTON (CBS) - It's a chance to own a piece of history, with items ranging from lottery tickets to John F. Kennedy's Harvard sweater. Boston-based RR Auction is accepting bids for almost 300 Presidential artifacts through February 18.

Bob Eaton, CEO & Founder of RR Auction, said, "You hold that letter and you're thinking to yourself, 'George Washington wrote that letter? Abraham Lincoln held that?'"

Executive Vice President of RR Auction Bobby Livingston said, "Washington himself- this is before he was a General or a President- had to sign each lottery ticket to make it official."

As for JFK's sweater, Livingston said, "Mrs. Kennedy after the assassination was being interviewed by a CBS cameraman and he was cold so she went and retrieved this sweater and let him have it."

"We have things starting at $100 into five figures so it's an incredible history lesson of U.S. Presidents," said Livingston. One of the big-ticket items- locks of George and Martha Washington's hair, with an estimated value of $75,000.

Livingston said, "Some of the most valuable presidential artifacts interestingly are presidential hair. In the 18th and 19th century it was not out of the realm to take a lock of hair as a remembrance." He added, "We actually sold a lock of Lincoln's hair last year for over $80,000 dollars."

"You could take current events and past events, kind of mesh those two together and a lot of things that they're writing about 100 years ago- in a lot of cases they're the same things they're talking about on the news today," said Eaton.

To check out all of the items being auctioned, visit: RRAuction.com