The historic auction of Colonel Harland Sanders’ personal collection generated just shy of $300,000 in sales, with more than 100 artifacts sold across 74 lots to collectors, historians, entrepreneurs, and fans around the world on July 28 at the Claudia Sanders Dinner House in Shelbyville, attracting more than 500 bidders, both in person and online.
Colonel Harland Sanders’ personal belongings, including his iconic black bow tie and a 1964 planner that sold for $30,000, were auctioned in Kentucky as his former home and the Claudia Sanders Dinner House are also up for sale.
The collection included items from Sanders’ personal and professional life, from handwritten notes and recipe cards to his signature clip-on bow tie and the 1964 planner that sparked one of the night’s biggest bidding wars.
“They had all of this in basements and closets and everything, and decided it was time to let the world, who loves the man, have an opportunity to buy the memorabilia,” Bill Menish, owner and lead auctioneer with The Menish Group, told Fox News.
The top-selling item was Colonel Sanders’ Personal Handwritten Datebook and Working Planner, which sold for $30,000, serving as Sanders’ personal working notebook in 1964, documenting observations, expenses, travel details, meals, business notes, and other aspects of his daily activities.
Menish said the planner generated additional buzz because of a handwritten note on the back: “But then on the back, for some unknown reason, there’s 11 herbs and spices,” he said.
Inside the planner is a handwritten herbs-and-spices list that KFC Corp. went to court in the early 2000s to shield from public view, but ultimately withdrew the suit after determining that the listed ingredients bore no resemblance to its closely guarded 11-herb-and-spice formula and appeared to be part of a stuffing recipe instead.
The clip-on black ribbon bow tie that appears on Sanders’ image in the KFC logo went for $8,000, with auctioneer Jonathan Klunk saying, “Not a lot of people know; he did wear clip-ons.”
A 1955 certificate naming Sanders as an honorary Kentucky Colonel sold for $23,000.
Additional top sellers included
an engraved pressure cooker, a cutlery set, Sanders’ personal watches, an original cash register, a bust sculpted by his daughter, and his 1966 patent for pressure frying chicken.
“Colonel Sanders was the original celebrity chef,” said Bill Menish of The Menish Group, adding that “The feedback has been worldwide, so we needed to have an auction that would cater to that worldwide audience.”
Commenting on Sanders’ iconic appearance, Menish said, “He didn’t dress like that before he was starting to build Kentucky Fried Chicken. He adopted the colonel: the clothes, the bow tie, the glasses, the goatee.”
“The response exceeded our expectations,” said Bill Menish, lead auctioneer for the sale, noting that “Collectors, historians, franchise operators, and Colonel Sanders enthusiasts recognized that this wasn’t simply a memorabilia auction—it was an opportunity to acquire artifacts that remained together through an extraordinary chain of ownership.”
“The excitement among bidders, the strong online participation, and the national media attention surrounding the sale demonstrated just how enduring Colonel Sanders’ legacy continues to be,” Menish continued.
In the viral moment that captured collectors’ attention, the mysterious herbs-and-spices list inside the 1964 planner dominated bidding as enthusiasts wondered whether Sanders had scribbled down the secret to KFC’s world-famous recipe.
The list was the subject of an early 2000s lawsuit filed by the KFC Corp. to keep the contents private, but KFC later dropped the legal action, noting they were not Sanders’ “secret recipe” but likely a listing for a stuffing recipe.
“Regardless of interpretation, the page contributed substantially to the planner’s notoriety and further cemented its place within the broader story of Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken,” the auction listing noted.
The collection, preserved by the Settle family since their 1974 purchase of Blackwood Hall and the Claudia Sanders Dinner House directly from Colonel and Claudia Sanders, offered rare personal artifacts spanning Sanders’ life, business career, and legacy.
Sealed bids are being accepted through midnight July 31 for Blackwood Hall, the Sanders’ home for nearly 25 years, and the landmark Claudia Sanders Dinner House.