Like all sequels, next week’s “Property From Kennedy Family Homes” auction at Sotheby’s pales compared to the original – in this case, the original being the historic 1996 sale, at which some 6,000 objects from the Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were hammered down for $34.4 million. The sellers were Caroline Kennedy and her brother, John Jr., and the outlandish prices fetched for golf clubs ($772,500), rocking chairs ($453,500), and tape measures ($48,875) made headlines around the world.

The current sale, by comparison, is clearly a sale of second-round material. There are half as many lots, mostly culled from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s vacation homes in Hyannis Port, Martha’s Vineyard, and the heart of hunt country in New Jersey and Virginia. There are also remnants from Jackie’s Fifth Avenue apartment and items that furnished the family’s private White House quarters.

Sotheby’s official pre-sale estimate is $1 million, but that judges merely the actual worth of the objects. Expect the Kennedy factor to tack on another zero or so. “One should pay very little attention to the estimates,” said A La Vieille Russie’s Peter Schaffer. “The name is so powerful.”

To many the Kennedys and their possessions remain sacred. While touring the auction preview, I saw another journalist who couldn’t hold back her tears, so overcome was she with nostalgia for all the optimism connected to the Kennedy era. And the exhibition designer certainly has pulled out all the sentimental stops, mounting family photos around the walls and on giant screens that divide up the exhibition galleries.

But Camelot myths aside, the sale is ultimately a high-end yard sale. The shabby-chic summer house is always more alluring in the mind than in the flesh. In person, it’s old Elvis and Dean Martin records, chipped furniture, dusty ship models, and posters.

To truly appreciate the Kennedy mystique – get the auction catalog. For $50 you get wondrous photographs of Jackie’s elegant second (and third, forth, and fifth) homes, from the oceanfront spread in the Vineyard to her cottage in Virginia’s elite horse country. Never have pressed-glass candlesticks, rustic pine furniture, and rag rugs looked so attractive, and Sotheby’s stylists deserve high marks for appetizingly packaging Jackie’s Kennedy’s easy breezy WASP decor.

Indeed, it is hard to discern exactly how the rooms looked so nice, given the utterly prosaic nature of the Kennedy possessions. They didn’t go for fancy, or spend much money. Clearly Jackie had a great eye for mixing and matching, jumbling up plaid and floral upholstery with baskets, decoys, and wild flowers. There is an alchemy between the objects, the same sort of bravura she used in dressing herself, mixing high and low and making it all look smashing.

“She had a very refined taste,” said Mr. Schaffer. “She could mix pop pearls with rubies and diamonds and real pearls and all would look wonderful on her.” The auction includes two lots purchased from A La Vieille Russie, including an Art Deco sapphire-and-diamond brooch, estimated at $6,000-$8,000. Much of the jewelry in the sale, however, is costume: high on style and low on objective value.

This applies to much in the sale, which includes monogrammed linens, coffee table books, and tourist trinkets. “The first sale was much more about provenance than the objects,” said Asian art dealer Carlton Rochell, who worked at Sotheby’s during the first auction (as did this reporter). “When it comes to looking at prices realized, people were buying history.”

The auction includes a selection of horse-related material, mostly drawn from homes in Peapack, N.J. and near Middleburg, Va. Jackie used both homes to indulge in her passion for riding, joining the local hunt clubs. A 1962 photo in the auction catalog shows Jackie riding Sadar, a horse she received as a gift from the President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan. The sale includes a number of lots direct from the tack room, mostly all in blue and white and monogrammed “JOK,” reflecting the First Lady’s second marriage to Greek Shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis. There are horse blankets and even a riding crop, inscribed “Caroline,” estimated at $75,000 to $100,000.

One artwork of note is a watercolor by Ogden Pleissner, “The Breakwater,” of John F. Kennedy sailing in the Hyannis harbor. A plaque on the back of the picture indicates it was given to the family in 1965 by Hyannis Port neighbors, in memory of the slain president.

Scattered among the hooked rugs and beach chairs, however, are a few serious art objects. An 11th-century Khmer gray sandstone statue of a curvaceous goddess (supposedly owned by John Jr.) is tagged with a $40,000-$60,000 estimate, which is evidently cheap, Kennedy provenance aside. “It’s very nice, a simple elegant piece from the classic period,” said Mr. Rochell. He said the gray goddess might fetch $85,000-$90,000 on the retail market.

Photographs of her Fifth Avenue coop show Jackie’s love for Asian and French objects. Each year she would send her housekeeper to buy batik fabrics from China Seas, according to the company’s founder, Inger McCabe Elliott. The housekeeper appeared at annual sales with a specific list of items Jackie wanted, especially blue and white material. An inscribed batik book from Mrs. Elliott to Jackie is included in the sale.

The sale also includes a Chinese export mug, filled with five Asian calligraphy brushes, which Jackie used to paint at a desk in her living room (est. $500-$700), a wonderful sentimental souvenir from a woman who was known for her sense of artistry.

Jackie worked in publishing as a book editor from 1978 until her death in 1994, and she was always an avid reader. The books in the sale indicate the breath of her intellectual interests – including “Diary of a Napoleanic Soldier” and “Living Insects of the World,” not to mention “The Bouviers” – and getting a peek at Jackie O’s library alone is worth the trip over to York Avenue. The books are lotted into groups by categories (history, gardening, music) and most have estimates in the low hundreds. But if the first sale was any indication, expect priced to soar much higher.

Sotheby’s announced this sale last November. A hint of an upcoming sale leaked out last April, however, with reports that a Sotheby’s warehouse guard had been arrested for stealing 35 items that had belonged to John Jr. These were being stored at Sotheby’s warehouse on East 110th Street, suggesting the house might be secretly assembling another sale. Oddly, though, this auction doesn’t seem to include any of those items – including personal letters and telegrams – that the guard allegedly stole. Does this leave the door open for a third Kennedy sale?

February 15 & 16 at 10 a.m.& 2 p.m.; February 17 at 10 a.m. (1334 York Avenue, at 71st Street, 212-606-7000). Exhibition: February 10-13.