The king’s fatigues and cape (but no blue suede shoes) for sale

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 9:41 a.m.

These and 2,000 more of the King's never displayed treasures from his Graceland compound in Tennessee will be sold at auction in October at Las Vegas' MGM Grand hotel, Gurnsey's auction house announced Thursday.

The bulk of the items to be auctioned are record, movie and performance contracts, including the publishing contract for "Heartbreak Hotel" and letters from Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and President John F. Kennedy.

There will also be some classic pieces like a vintage yellow Cadillac station wagon with wood-grain side panels and an ivory wool cape decorated with rhinestones and an American eagle.

There will be no minimum prices set. Arlan Ettinger, owner of the Manhattan auction house that also sold Mark McGwire's 70th homerun baseball for just over $3 million in January, said he expected the prices to range from affordable to six figures.

The items were selected to help weed out the collection at Graceland.

Money raised from the auction will help build a small group of houses for homeless families in Memphis. The development, called Presley Place, will cost about $1.5 million to build. It will be operated by the Metropolitan Interfaith Association and will provide counseling and job training for a year.

Before he was discovered, the Presley family lived for several years in federally funded housing project in Memphis.

The items will be previewed in Las Vegas beginning Sept. 28. The auction is slated for Oct. 8 to Oct. 10, and possibly Oct. 11 as well.

Presley died Aug. 16, 1977 at age 42.