A Type 1 photo of the moment when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, taken by Dallas newspaper photographer Bob Jackson, sold for $36,600 at Goldin Auctions on Saturday night.
The image, which captures the shocking moment in which Ruby shot and killed President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, just two days after Kennedy's assassination, would win Jackson a Pulitzer Prize and become the most famous photo taken from that day. Jackson was working for the Dallas Times Herald when he took the photo.
Though Jackson’s was not the first image to be circulated in national newspapers, it would become the most indelible.
The photo is known as a Type I, meaning it was developed from the original negative within two years of the photo being taken. Type I photos have exploded in popularity in recent years, such as the Mickey Mantle image used for his 1951 Bowman Rookie card, which sold for an auction-record $843,750 in April 2024.
The Jack Ruby Type I sold at Goldin is described as the largest Type I of its kind known to exist, and one of very few still surviving. Another print of the photo, also from Jackson’s iconic shot, previously sold for $12,500 at Nate D. Sanders Auctions.
According to Henry Yee, Principal Authenticator of PSA Photo Authentication Services, nearly all "vintage" Oswald-Ruby photos from 1963 that have survived are considered Type 3 — photos developed from a duplicate negative or wire transmission within two years of the photo being taken.
Yee also confirmed to cllct there are only five Type 1 examples of the shot certified by PSA.
Earlier this year, Goldin sold another historic Type I photo from the (“Flag Raising on Iwo Jima”) for $103,000.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.