Rick Kaplan was a 10-year-old boy living in a St. Louis suburb in 1960 when his mother took him to John F. Kennedy for President Headquarters in University City, Mo. His undying admiration for the politician began that day as did his collection of Kennedy memorabilia, a collection that is now considered one of the largest if not ---the---- largest collection in the country and possibly even the world. As the country begins to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination Nov. 22, 1963, Kaplan has opened his home to reporters and members of the Johnson County Democratic Party to get a closer look at the massive collection.
“Campaign headquarters were a little different then than they are now. At least in 1960 everything was free,” Kaplan said. “You can imagine what it was like for a boy walking into that headquarters where they had boxes of buttons and window decals and bumper stickers and posters and you could take all you wanted.”
The Jewish chiropractor hasn’t added up how much his collection — which consists of everything from buttons to pencils to posters to bobble heads to Halloween masks to games and much more — is worth. Suffice it to say thousands of dollars. He also doesn’t know exactly how big it is. He does know it’s too large to display it in its entirety in the finished basement of his Overland Park home, noting he has boxes of Kennedy mementos and souvenirs packed away in closets.
During that first visit to the campaign headquarters in 1960, Kaplan became enthralled with the enthusiasm of the Kennedy volunteers. He didn’t live that far from it, so “I actually would ride my bike down to it and get more stuff.”
He said his parents were probably Democrats, and his memories of the campaign that year are that everyone was pro-Kennedy.
“I was probably in fifth grade at the time and I remember people wearing Kennedy buttons to school. The election was after Halloween and I remember people wearing gobs of Kennedy buttons on their costumes. There was a lot of enthusiasm about JFK, as I perceived it as a 10-year-old.”
“He seemed real to me, unlike Nixon.”
When he was a young boy, and before he saw pictures of JFK, Kaplan said he thought all presidents looked like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. He also thought the three presidents before Kennedy — Franklin Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower — looked grandfatherly. Kaplan thinks Kennedy’s young looks and actions — he was only 43 years old when he was elected — is what made him such a fan.
“I saw him playing at Hyannis Port with the Kennedy clan. … Seeing the president play football was exciting to me. Plus as a boy the other thing that sold me was that they made such a big deal about PT-109 … What boy didn’t like war figures and Army boats.”
Following Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Kaplan said a whole new wave of memorial items were produced.
“There were simple things like pencils or sharpeners or the Life and Time and Look magazines … bust figures memorializing Kennedy saying 1917 to 1963 and things with the ‘Ask not’ quote on them … I collected all those things,” Kaplan said.
A visit to a 1964 traveling exhibit of JFK items also fueled Kaplan’s love of all things Kennedy.
“They were cool things like the coconut that he carved the note on (Kennedy carved a message for help after PT-109 was sunk by a Japanese destroyer), a draft of his ‘Ask not’ speech and a letter he wrote to his father while he was at Choate asking for a raise in his allowance.”
“I was mesmerized. I thought it was really cool to see these actual documents in his handwriting. In the back of my mind I thought I’d love to have a JFK museum.”
By this time Kaplan was in high school. Since his idol was dead, collecting the Kennedy things no longer appealed to him as much as doing other things. But as he grew older the thrill of the collection returned and in the late ’70s Kaplan started collecting Kennedy memorabilia again. That’s when he learned about the Kennedy Political Items Collection (KPIC) club.
“The guy that’s the head of it is a nice Jewish boy named Harvey Goldberg from Clark, N.J. I called him and I found out there was also an actual group called the APICC, which was the American Political Items Collectors Club”
As these were the days before computers, Kaplan learned about Kennedy items, including items being sold and auctioned, through these club newsletters. He doesn’t purchase much anymore but he still relies on these newsletters today as he does not own a cell phone or personally use a computer. Sometimes he enlists the help of his wife, Liz, to help with online purchases.
Most of Kaplan’s memorabilia consists of items from Kennedy’s run for president though his presidency and the assassination. However he does have some items from JFK’s congressional and senate runs.
What do visitor’s like the most?
“I have a lot of the original pieces from Dallas in 1963,” he said. “There is the invitation to the Dallas Trade Mart, the luncheon he was going to at 1 o’clock that day. … I have two shelves related to the assassination.”
When he guides a visitor through the tour, he has little stories about all the memorabilia, such as the pen used to sign the nuclear test ban treaty and the autograph he has from when Kennedy visited what is now Shawnee Mission North High School on Sept. 15, 1958.
During Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, Kaplan noticed that Obama was often being compared to Kennedy. As he saw items like that, he started collecting them, too. Now he has a corner set aside for Kennedy-Obama memorabilia.
He loves every bit of his collection, especially if it displays well.
“I love every little item,” he said. “I like knick-knacky things. I like the spoons. I like the pencils. I like the handkerchiefs and the plastic pocket protectors.
“I would say the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the wedding invitation, the assassination stuff, the 1960s debate poster is a favorite, the autograph from Shawnee Mission North is one of my favorites … I’m as excited when I get a new button or a new pencil or a new poster or new bumper sticker. I love 3D items …”
