Sotheby's about to auction hundreds of Camelot items.

Byline: Lisa Anderson

NEW YORK _ The Kennedy name long may exert a near-magical allure for this nation, but opportunities to own an artifact from that brief, heady period known as America's Camelot will become even rarer after the contents of five Kennedy family homes hit the auction block here next week.

The auction will offer more than 600 lots of items, primarily home furnishings and decorative accessories, drawn from Kennedy homes in the Massachusetts seaside resorts of Hyannis Port and Martha's Vineyard; the horse country of Peapack, N.J., and Middleburg, Va., and the Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died on May 19, 1994.

Ranging from chipped china teacups and rusty salt cellars to an 11th Century Khmer sandstone torso of a goddess and an intimate portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy sitting with Caroline and John Jr., the auction often has been called Fifth …