JACKSON, Miss. -- Die-hard Elvis memorabilia collectors can get their fix of ruffle-front dress shirts, life-sized cardboard Elvis cutouts and even a non-functioning electric chair made in tribute to "Jailhouse Rock" at an auction this weekend in north Mississippi.
The kitschy stuff didn't belong to Elvis Presley, but to the late Paul MacLeod, an eccentric Elvis super-fan who ran Graceland Too, a roadside museum dedicated to the king of rock 'n' roll.
MacLeod died last summer, and his estate is selling the thousands of things he collected, including albums, guitars, ceramic figurines, commemorative plates, lamps, polyester ruffle-front dress shirts, leather jackets and beaded jumpsuits. It's selling other manifestations of MacLeod's Elvis obsession, including life-sized cardboard cutouts of the singer and trunks full of magazines and newspaper clippings that mentioned him.
Also up for auction are four cars, including MacLeod's pink Cadillac, the replica electric chair that MacLeod built and the ramshackle antebellum home itself, complete with boarded-up windows and questionable plumbing.
Graceland Too was not affiliated with Presley's Graceland mansion in nearby Memphis, Tennessee, or the late singer's estate.
From 1990 until MacLeod's death in July, his eclectic shrine at his Holly Springs home -- about halfway between Graceland and Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi -- was a late-night favorite of intoxicated college students and tourists. People could bang on the door at any hour, pay $5 and get a tour from the hyper-caffeinated MacLeod, who guzzled Coca-Cola by the case and regaled visitors with rapid-fire tales about Elvis, some of which might have actually been true.
Attorney Phillip Knecht, who represents MacLeod's estate, said Friday that there is no minimum bid on the items. While MacLeod often boasted that the collection was worth millions, Knecht said MacLeod's two grown daughters might be happy to get $50,000, which would help pay off the roughly $20,000 to $25,000 of debt he left.
On Friday, retired teacher and school administrator Wendell Davis drove from the Memphis suburb of Olive Branch, Mississippi, to look at the auction items on display before Saturday's auction.
"I'm sitting in the chair where the owner actually died," Davis, 74, said in a phone interview, describing it as a comfortable white rocking chair. "I've become so attached to this chair, I'm promoting it by saying if someone buys the chair, they get me also."
Davis said he took the Graceland Too tour one time, several years ago with a group of people who had clearly hitting the bottle before they arrived. It was crowded and the house was like a fire trap, he said.
The homemade electric chair is a sturdy wooden structure that's painted gray. It's studded with yellow clips strung with strands of electric wire connected to nothing. During the heyday of Graceland Too, tourists could sit in the chair and pose for fake execution photos, complete with an overturned metal colander for a hat.