MIAMI (Reuters) - Wade Jones of North Carolina says he snared a plastic cup from which Elvis Presley drank at a concert in 1977 and kept the cup and the water for 27 years before selling the remaining few tablespoons of water on eBay.
The winning bid for the water was $455. He says he won't sell the cup.
A 40-year-old resident of Belmont, North Carolina, Jones said he was 13 when he attended a Presley concert at the Charlotte Coliseum in February, 1977, six months before the death of the rock 'n roll icon.
After the concert, Jones went to the stage looking for a souvenir. A policeman gave him the plastic foam cup, from which he had seen Elvis drinking earlier, he said.
Jones said he kept the cup and water in his freezer until 1985, when he transferred the water to a vial and sealed it. Over the years, he said, he acquired a photograph of Elvis holding the cup at that concert as authentication for his claim.
"I promise this thing is 100 percent legitimate," Jones said.
It was the $28,000 eBay sale of a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich in which some people saw the image of the Virgin Mary that persuaded him to auction off his Elvis water.
"I've been selling on eBay since 2000. People said you ought to sell that Elvis cup," Jones said. "When I heard the recent news ... about the grilled cheese sandwich, I kind of thought about it.
"I didn't get $28,000, it's true," he said of the winning bid on the 3-4 tablespoons of water. "But I'm happy."
Jones said he got a lot of e-mails asking how much he wanted for the cup. He's not going to sell but is offering to allow the highest bidder to "exhibit" it for a short time. Minimum bid is $300.
"It's something I've had since I was 13 and I'm just not going to get rid of it," he said.
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