Commemoration versus Commodification: The Collector’s Side of Celebrity Deaths ･ﾟ✧

September 28, 2023. I don’t know the answers, but I’ll ask the questions.

I’ve been mulling. I’ve been mulling ever since I learned an eBayer listed parts to the wrecked plane that carried Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Randy Hughes to their deaths.

It’s got the flavor of internet legend, doesn’t it? But it happened. Official news sources attest to it. Two alleged pieces—part of the tail section, and part of the belly—of the Piper Comanche were placed on auction in August 2001 by Eric and Scott Mills of Jackson, Tennessee, who said their father paid $20 in 1978 for the tail.

Of course, they weren’t asking $20. The minimum bid started at either $50,000 or $100,000. Presumably, bids had escalated to $50,100.00 when eBay pulled the plug, responding to inevitable complaints that arose from the public. That might not have stopped a sale. According to one blogger I found, “eBay then restarted the auction, but there were no more bids.” The owners may have “sold the pieces to a guy in Canada.”

And thus transactions for an object of tragedy ended.

To be clear: this isn’t unusual, not for any high-profile tragedy, and not for the Cline-Copas-Hawkins-Hughes incident. Thousands flocked to the crash in 1963, taking bits of the plane for themselves.

The idea that a tragedy could be bid on and sold is haunting, in some ways. And for people to pick up plane pieces like a souvenir sounds tasteless. But in other ways… the preservation of morbid items is normalized.

Museums collect artifacts of death. The Country Music Hall of Fame has part of the plane, too, including the landing gear and clock from the instrument panel. I’ve heard the Hall of Fame never displays the plane pieces, but they used to show personal items recovered from the crash site - things like Patsy’s makeup case or cigarette lighter. These have since moved to the Patsy Cline Museum, which also has the silver Elgin wrist watch she wore when she died, and the floral handkerchief her mother used at Cline’s funeral. In the limbo zone between private collection and public service, Marty Stuart’s recently-opened Congress of Country Music displays Patsy’s boots from her day of death.

In fact, curators of the Country Music Hall of Fame checked out the Mills brothers’ parts when the auction began. The brothers carted their plane pieces to Nashville in the back of a pickup. Per MTV, “curator Mark Medley said the Hall of Fame will not bid on the pieces… but would ask any potential buyers to loan them to the Hall, which already has parts of the plane in its archives.” That’s interesting. That both attests to the parts being authentic, and to museums accepting private ownership to major historic pieces.

There’s endless ethics to untangle with historical items collections. When it comes to materials associated with tragedy, ethical complications increase. Is it okay to buy and sell items related to a person’s death? Is it different if there’s not a pricetag to it? Is it different if there are multiple copies or parts of the thing versus only one ever? Is it different if everyday people get their hands on it versus institutions of learning? What is the difference between a museum storing it versus a celebrity like Marty Stuart owning it privately versus everyday people having something at home?

One possible, flattened answer is that museums are commemorative and inclusive. They preserve knowledge and historic materials, and provide everyone the chance to edify their knowledge by seeing noteworthy items first-hand. Can any private collector provide a justification that measures up to that? Probably not.

I do hold that this is relevant and important. But I’ll also admit it’s the flattened answer.

Marty Stuart owns the largest private collection of country music memorabilia, down to A. P. Carter’s elusive signature and Jimmie Rodgers’ iconic guitar, and for the longest time, no one could see those items but his connections. That I consider Stuart’s lifelong path to be a noble preservationist of country music past doesn’t negate our lack of access. Does his creation of the Congress retroactively forgive him, or was he always justified taking stewardship (Stuartship, if you will) over rare items? Other collectors I’ve made contact with, like a bluegrass historian who owns rare private labels from the 1940s onward, have just as much passion, reverence, and desire for preservation – but no public avenue of education beyond Facebook pages and amateur websites. Museums can become a conduit for people gawking unbecomingly at death, a highlighted lure to draw in visitors. Museums might never display niche items like said rare bluegrass singles, and while institutional ownership means they’ll never get damaged, it removes public access more assuredly than what would happen in a private collector’s hands. Sometimes, only private collectors care enough about a thing to get it. Sometimes, the private preserves and educates better than the public. Sometimes, people might consider placing something in a vault more soulless than letting it live and breathe. Musical instruments are tools to be used; loved ones inheriting a famous fiddle and playing it for themselves has more value than muting its voice in a display case.

Then there’s the mentifact side. The informational side. The material that’s shared by voice and print. Every day, people’s morbid fascination causes them to deep dive into the deaths of Cline and Copas and Hawkins and Hughes, or Stringbean and Estelle, or Hank Williams. It's not pretty, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I scoured the internet for every public detail on Steve and Elizabeth Scruggs’s deaths. It’s not just us learning for the sake of educational attainment, but intentional moribund engagement to dig into someone else’s suffering. Yes, it arises out of respect for celebrities (that’s why we’re fans), but you can’t deny there’s something different that sparks in the mind when focusing upon and caring about and endlessly discussing a celebrity’s tragedy. People care about Patsy Cline, and people care about Patsy Cline’s death in particular. What’s the line between accessing information—even embarrassing or revealing information—that’s been repeatedly publicized, and being nosey about a real human being’s vulnerability? We tend not to have problems probing into the dark facts of public figures, at least not after several decades have passed, and maybe the treatment of physical artifacts is the same.

Me, myself, and I aren’t removed from these issues. I own items taken directly from the funeral services of Earl Scruggs and Curly Seckler. I purchased these through eBay with no prior relationship to the seller or anyone connected to Scruggs’s and Seckler’s extended circles. For the grand total of $46.48 ($39.99 plus shipping and taxes), I, a nobody, received authentic programs from each man’s funeral. I’d previously seen Seckler’s program scanned online for public viewing. I’ve also seen Bill Monroe’s funeral program sell on eBay. Maybe there’s a difference between offering freely and putting a price to it, as the former is a gift, while the latter turns into emotionless commodification. Contrarily, maybe transactions are the means that ensure someone who truly cares will take it. Maybe you could argue there’s a difference between booklets and plane parts: funeral programs are intended as reverent memoirs to the deceased, while the parts of a plane are not. Or maybe you’d say the difference is… flavor text, with the same result: me grabbing something sensitive to which I “should” have no part.

My personal goal is respect and preservation. I do believe private collectors can have and can succeed in protecting and distributing history, but that it needs to be balanced with public institutions. That’s where “multiple copies” versus “one copy” comes in, plus the extent of rarity. I will never buy something too rare because I do not think I should ethically be the person responsible for preserving it: that should go to professionals. If I somehow chip a Gilliland and Robertson record (Lord banish the thought!), I have chipped history and will be endlessly disappointed in myself, but I know museums already own multiple copies in better condition and that many more exist online, traded every few months between private collectors; we would not be losing history. We can interact with history, handling media that was meant to be shared and played at home a hundred years ago, thus keeping it alive and integrated into our culture. Even for something very rare or individual, there are fair cases for private ownership: a gift from one celebrity to his friend, an inheritance in the family, the fact that museums by nature will store some and not everything, and that it’s reasonable for humans to interact with objects personally as they were made to be used. Plus, a person shouldn’t be forced to donate – they should feel inclined to consider donating because they, too, have been taught values of preserving history. With nuance (and a touch of idealism), we can find balance and room for everything without loss.

I firmly believe that if someone is a collector of even slightly rare materials, you should go in knowing your ethical grounds. And not just about something being rare – but what the symbolism is for the thing you own. One reason I’m on this site is to uphold my values. If I’m going to own something as sensitive as a card that was in the same room as my hero’s body, I better be able to treat it with reverence, and share its value with others around me, rather than holing up and having it disappear from history forever. It can’t be mere souvenir. If I’m going to collect something, I’m not going to take material that a museum otherwise lacks, or is too closely associated with the insensitive. I asked myself several questions on my motive before clicking “buy” for the funeral programs, and I would never, absolutely never, think that buying a plane part haunted in someone’s blood is diversion to brag off to friends. But I do believe that preserving the plane pieces isn’t wrong, and can be connected with trying to retain all—all—parts of history.

Motive of public institutions is more likely to be grounded in respect of preservation, in respect of education, and in respect of holistically, honorably retaining every facet of a person’s life. Their death is significant and worthy of attention. It’s a safe and in my opinion perfectly fair place for the plane to be stored. And I would rather the plane be stored than discarded – because death is of value! Private ownership of sensitive materials is where we’re more likely to lean into less sterile motivations, and because human emotional motivations vary so widely, I think that makes it harder to find consensus on whether these happenings are okay.

Interestingly enough, presumably Patsy’s husband, as well as Mrs. Hughes, survivor of Randy Hughes, said in interviews that the auction of plane crash parts didn’t bother them. I don’t think that can settle whether it’s “okay” to sell artifacts like this, as they just as easily could’ve said they were offended. I don’t even think their ease settles this one case, as sanctity of life doesn’t change whether a survivor’s emotions get piqued or not. Maybe money secures a better, more responsible private owner instead of cheapening deaths… but personally I think there’s a high chance for novelty-driven “show-and-tell” that might cross some (though not everyone’s) personal tastes of tact. There’s more going on here than ethics of ownership and preservation, after all: once death is in the picture, you have to ask whether you’re treating the very essence of human life with regard.

Chances are higher that people who went to Copas’, Hawkins’, Clines’, and Hughes’ death site were doing something… tacky… when they grabbed a plane piece. There’s novelty in it, after all. How many took it home, enjoying the juicy moment they shared with friends and saw the friend’s jaw drop to the floor? Then again, who very quietly, solemnly pocketed it, and pulled it out in a silent moment with prayer?

Human beings can’t look away from death - rather, I’d say we flock to it - and we’ll never be able to completely separate our fascination with death from solemn means of preserving history, or from holistic enjoyment in a public figure. Chances are every one of us has engaged in all three motives, if not blended all three together into inseparable stew.

People will continue visiting historic death sites and pose next to the commemorative marker. We want to be bound up with the important, the memorable, the notorious, the historic, the monumental. We want to say, “I was there.” We want to say, “I was part of it.” We want to be connected to the lives of the famous. And connected is the key word, for ultimately, we are creatures that seek the personal connection. If the best connection you can get is a plane piece or a funeral program, you are reaching out, striving, to be part of their lives.

I think, in the end, all our pursuits are tied into some form of commemoration. We wouldn’t care about having it if we didn’t care about it. How we care about it, how we engage with historic tragedy or historic articles, that might need wisdom, and that wisdom can be the difference between a tasteless circus, an okay bit of diversion, and a solemn monument.

The bluegrass record collector I mentioned contacted me because I managed to buy a very rare disc. His mission is honorable and I couldn’t be more impressed with his collective work. He offered me a good price for the record, and I told him, “Not today.” He has many rare records. This is my one. I wanted my piece of it, my one little piece. So did the people who went to the 1963 plane crash site. Tacky, unethical, unthinking, selfish, poorly timed, commemorative, just awkward, respectful, or craving connections, whatever you want to call it, I think there’s no denying… they wanted… their one little piece.

I don’t have answers, but that much, just that much, I can understand.