Thirty-one years after Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed by a would-be assassin, an online auction house on the island of Guernsey (an autonomous British protectorate and controversial tax haven just off the northern coast of France) is making available to the highest bidder a glass vial it says once held the president’s blood.

Sixty-nine days after being sworn in, Reagan was attacked outside a Hilton Hotel in Washington by John Hinckley, Jr., a schizophrenic young man who later said he was trying to impress the actress Jodie Foster. The Secret Service rushed the president to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. Despite significant internal injuries and bleeding, Reagan recovered and was back at work at the White House only weeks later. …

Now fans can put in a bid for a 5-inch long, plasma-stained glass tube and an accompanying medical form listing Reagan’s patient identification number, age, sex, and the name of the hospital’s chief cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. None of the boxes on the form indicating which tests should be done are ticked off, but instructions are written onto the page requesting the sample’s “lead level” be examined.