Bidspirit auction | Peter Benchley’s Personal Desk Accessories

Peter Benchley’s Personal Desk Accessories and Ephemera - Peter Benchley (American, 1940-2006). A collection of seven personal items and desk accessories formerly utilized by the author. The group includes a cream-colored White House place card featuring a green-printed Great Seal of the United States above the name Mr. Benchley in black calligraphy with an accompanying note from Wendy Benchley. An Eastern Airlines Ionosphere Club luggage tag in blue and white plastic features a blue leather strap and is printed with the author's Princeton, New Jersey address. Professional ephemera includes a National Geographic Society name tag in a plastic sleeve and an Amazon Productions identification card identifying Benchley as Executive Producer. Decorative desk accessories comprise a clear rectangular acrylic block printed with a philosophical quote from author Brendan Gill, a miniature gold-toned metal abacus with movable beads and an ornate scrollwork frame, and a polished brass serif letter P. The abacus is marked on the underside with an adhesive label. Unsigned. These sat on Peter’s desk and in the bookcase in his office, within reach as he wrote. The figurines represent the menagerie of a man whose imagination fired on all cylinders while writing about wildlife and wild places. Many of the objects in this section came home from the Benchleys’ dive trips and writing assignments around the world: Tahiti, Komodo, Kenya and South Africa among them, and above all the 1987 National Geographic expedition to Papua New Guinea that produced Peter’s feature “Ghosts of War in the South Pacific.” These items were bought because they were intriguing to Peter and they lived on the shelves of his office for decades. Provenance: Several items in this lot were exhibited in ”From the White House to the Deep Ocean: LBJ, Jaws and Conservation, ” held at the LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, Texas, from April 19 through October 19, 2025. From the personal collection of Peter Benchley (American, 1940–2006), acclaimed author of Jaws, accomplished diver, and prominent advocate for ocean and shark conservation.