JFK's Tie Knot

[Bob Prudhomme]

If you look closely they don't align. The Maltese Cross icon is slightly off-center to the row it is lined up with.


It is not surprising that a near alignment would occur because if you look at the pattern both the vertical and horizontal patterns are in an evenly-spaced grid.


But if you have good eyesight you can see the seam between the two different tie sections.


According to the damage there should be other parts of the tie that are damaged.

Here is something else to think about. Look again at the Archives photo:



While it may appear that, in this photo, five rows vertically may be the same measurement as five rows horizontally, this is not actually the case. Being a tie, it is only natural that, through several wearings, the tie would be stretched lengthwise.

I measured the middle horizontal row in this photo, using a ruler up against my monitor, and found it to be 77 mm from the outside edge of one outside icon to the outside edge of the other outside icon.

I then measured the middle vertical row in this photo in the same way, and found it to be 114 mm icon to icon. This is to be expected, as this row of icons is running lengthwise on the tie, and prone to stretching with wear.

Any lengthwise stretching will also tend to compress the rows of icons running across the tie.

So, in this photo of the tie,



the two vertical rows of icons on the face of the knot are in the group of icons that measured 114 mm/five icons, while, according to the beliefs of some, the two single icons above them are in a vertical section of tie, and belong to the group of icons that measured 77 mm/five icons.

With such a difference in spacing between horizontal and vertical rows, how is it that all six icons are aligned so perfectly? Shouldn't the top two icons be noticeably closer to each other?