NOT TODAY, EBAY (40)
By:
October 12, 2026
One in a series of posts via which Josh Glenn will share recent examples of stuff that he was tempted to purchase via eBay… but, heroically, didn’t.
Vintage Lincoln – Kennedy Coincidences Parchment Poster Civil War JFK Kitsch
US $19.99
As a child in Boston, I visited the USS Constitution — the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world today — a few times. On one of those visits, possibly in 1976 during the Bicentennial fervor, I was able to persuade someone (my Aunt Maggie?) to buy me a “Lincoln — Kennedy Coincidences” poster printed on fake-old parchment paper. Before I hung up a Shaun Cassidy poster, or a Darth Vader (“Cool — Calm — Collected”) poster, this urban legend poster may have been the first décor I ever picked for myself.
A little digging reveals that America has been bonkers at least since 1964 — a year after JFK’s assassination. The “Lincoln — Kennedy Coincidences” list appeared that year in the GOP Congressional Committee Newsletter. (There were no political motives, explained the newsletter’s mealy-mouthed editor. “We just thought of [the coincidences] as interesting.”) TIME, Newsweek, and other mainstream media outlets reprinted the list. A folksy spoken-word single, “History Repeats Itself” (Buddy Starcher; co-written by Minnie Pearl), which recounts many of the Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences, would reach no. 39 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 that year… and no. 2 on the Country singles chart. I’d like to believe that it edged out “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” The B-side of this record, btw, is a song called “Sniper’s Hill.”
Also in 1966, I was amused to discover, the musical satire duo Homer and Jethro released the single “Great Men Repeat Themselves”, which notes startling coincidences between LBJ and… Batman.
Martin Gardner, author of the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American, debunked the list right around the time that I acquired my poster. I didn’t read Gardner, then. I was utterly credulous, regarding the coincidences. I believed the whole thing.
MORE FURSHLUGGINER THEORIES BY JOSH GLENN: SCHEMATIZING | IN CAHOOTS | JOSH’S MIDJOURNEY | POPSZTÁR SAMIZDAT | VIRUS VIGILANTE | TAKING THE MICKEY | WE ARE IRON MAN | AND WE LIVED BENEATH THE WAVES | IS IT A CHAMBER POT? | I’D LIKE TO FORCE THE WORLD TO SING | THE ARGONAUT FOLLY | THE PERFECT FLANEUR | THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY | THE REAL THING | THE YHWH VIRUS | THE SWEETEST HANGOVER | THE ORIGINAL STOOGE | BACK TO UTOPIA | FAKE AUTHENTICITY | CAMP, KITSCH & CHEESE | THE UNCLE HYPOTHESIS | MEET THE SEMIONAUTS | THE ABDUCTIVE METHOD | ORIGIN OF THE POGO | THE BLACK IRON PRISON | BLUE KRISHMA | BIG MAL LIVES | SCHMOOZITSU | YOU DOWN WITH VCP? | CALVIN PEEING MEME | DANIEL CLOWES: AGAINST GROOVY | DEBATING IN A VACUUM | PLUPERFECT PDA | SHOCKING BLOCKING.