ShareThisMEMPHIS, Tenn. - Instruments supposedly used in the embalming of Elvis Presley are going up for auction, but the president of Memphis Funeral Home was skeptical about the authenticity of items including surgical instruments, a toe tag and eyeliner included in auction lots.
"Anybody could fake something like this. It's ridiculous," funeral-home president E.C. Daves said Wednesday.
He said embalming instruments have not changed in more than 50 years and would be almost impossible to verify as ones used in the preparation of Presley's body for burial in 1977.
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, a Chicago auction house, announced the auction to be held Aug. 12 in two lots, one valued up to $8,000 and one up to $6,000. President-CEO Leslie Hindman said the items were consigned to her by a retired embalmer now in his 80s who does not want to be identified.
Hindman said the auction house verified the items before listing them in its catalog and stands by their authenticity.
On her website, lesliehindman.com, she said embalmers worked through the night of Aug. 16, 1977, to prepare Presley's body for a private viewing the next morning.
"Preparing the body involved embalming the body, dressing the body in the suit chosen by Elvis' family, applying makeup and dying Elvis' graying hair to the jet-black color," she wrote.
Among items included in the auction are lip brushes, a comb, eyeliner, rubber gloves, forceps, a needle injector and an instrument known as an aneurysm hook.
A toe tag placed on the body at Baptist Memorial Hospital disappeared and was replaced by a tag that simply said "John Doe," according to Hindman. It was removed at the funeral home and now is included in the auction, she said.
Daves said those present at the 1977 embalming would have been senior members of the staff. He said he thought they had all died. A "preparation room case report" included among auction items lists two people identified with the initials "KS" and "PH."
Daves said the only case report he was aware of was an "embalming report" that remained in a Presley file in his desk for several years before he donated it to an American funeral service museum in Houston.
A spokesman at the Museum of Funeral History said the document has never gone on display because the Presley family has not granted permission.
Longtime Presley memorabilia collector and appraiser John Heath said items included in the auction are difficult to authenticate. Heath said he once was offered the original Presley toe tag stolen from Baptist Memorial Hospital.
"I turned it down," he said, "because I felt it was too morbid. I think most fans feel that way, too."
A spokesman for Graceland declined to comment about the auction, but Heath said the auction will involve a certain "gullibility. You're asked to put your full faith in the word of this one guy."
(E-mail Michael Lollar of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at lollar(at)commercialappeal.com.)
