Unreleased JFK funeral photos help!

Ok guys here is a very unusual question. I have a close friend who is a retired Navy photographer. He was in fact the only photographer allowed to follow along with the JFK funeral procession. All the other photographers; official, press or private were required to stay in various secured locations along the route during the procession for security reasons. After the funeral he handed over approximately 40-50 shots for publication or press release. The pictures are all 2 ¼ format and he still has the original 300 plus photos of never seen or released shots from the only vantage point afforded to one photographer. The negatives are in excellent condition. Does this sound like a treasure or just a curiosity? There are a number of very private and candid shots of all the family that sad day especially Jacqueline. Any ideas will help point us in the right direction.
Thanks all!

At the risk of sounding indelicate, it sounds like a goldmine to me.

I am thinking the same, however I don't know where to start. My good friend is in his 80's and most of his "contacts" are not in the business (or among the living, sadly) anymore.

you could go a lot of ways with it.

they could be sold for huge cash to a trashy magazine, sold to the family for privacy sake, or sold toa decent magazine like Time etc. Selling to Time or the like would bring about the most recognition.

Is he even allowed to do anything with them, since it was technically work for hire from the Navy?

At the risk of sounding realistic, it sounds like government property to me...

Keep the sale private and no one will know.

I never thought about the property rights issue. It has been over 40 years, maybe these possesion rules expire?

Slightly off topic but this same photographer was assigned to capture the Apollo splash downs. He has tons of never released photos of that era as well. Also a flag that was flown to the moon given to him and signed by the entire Apollo 14 crew. Here is fast shot of the flag. These are very rare I have learned. If anyone is interested I can get a better image.

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Are you serious? Ohmigod. I can't imagine being afforded the opportunity to photograph two such monumental events.

I would think these are government property. He photographed while he was in the service, probably using government equipment and film. The photos were most likely ment for the archives. They would think they would do well at hte Smithsonian.

If that was not cool enough he also was the white house photographer for the inaugurations of Eisenhower through Johnson. This guy has over 7 million navy photos in his lab.

He might be able to sell them to a big picture agency that generally has a large historical archive, such as Getty or Corbis. They might try to eat them up, and since there could be some competition, he could definitely get a good price. (just need to make sure of it!)

I think the gentleman in question really needs to get a good property rights lawyer. All we can offer is uninformed advice.

Mark

My thoughts exactly. It seems unlikely that the government wouldn't lay claim to these, but it seems just as unlikely that they let him keep them in the first place.

If/when these are published, I'll say I saw it here first.

The two gentlemen before my reply are totally spot on!

IF you want to get some big Dollars out of this (the legal way at least) get him a GOOD lawyer.... no need to fight anything yet, just get an appointment and talk about how things look at the moment.

Certainly better advice you will get than just from us in the forums.

Good luck selling these... and after that, why not buy every member who replied a 1DsII?