It’s the National Archives and Records Administration’s job to preserve everything Uncle Sam wants to hang on to. There’s a mountain of it. At last count the agency has about 10 billion pages of written documents; 12 million maps, charts, and drawings; 25 million photos and graphics; 24 million aerial photographs; 300,000 reels of movie film; 400,000 video and sound recordings; and 133 terabytes of electronic data. It also looks after the papers and other historical materials in 13 presidential libraries going back to Herbert Hoover.
But sometimes things slip through the cracks. It’s serious when a missing item once belonged to a president. It dramatically increases the object’s monetary value.
Here are several presidential possessions the National Archives can’t find.
Harry Truman’s Swords: People give the president “things.” Foreign leaders are especially generous. It’s a way to make their country look good in the president’s eyes.
Harry Truman was a man of immense personal integrity. He believed that when he was given an official gift, it rightfully belonged to the American people. That’s one reason why he created the Truman Presidential Library and Museum, so everyday folks could see all those glitzy gifts.
Unfortunately, a couple of guys decided to help themselves to some of them.
As daylight was breaking one Sunday morning in March 1978, two men broke the library’s glass front door, darted to a trio of display cases, smashed them open, and were gone in 45 seconds.
Also gone were three ceremonial swords and two daggers given to Truman by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and the Shah of Iran. All were hand crafted, featured such finery as gold chains and ivory grips, and were studded with glittering diamonds, emeralds and rubies. When Truman donated them to his library in the late 1950s, the group was appraised at $90,000.  Today, who knows? But $1 million is a good estimate.
Nearly 40 years have passed since the robbery, and the purloined presidential gifts haven’t been seen since.
Lyndon Johnson’s Class Ring: John F. Kennedy loved everything about the sea. So it was only natural that he accepted an invitation to deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s 1964 graduation ceremony. After his assassination, President Lyndon Johnson honored Kennedy’s commitment and spoke.
The graduates showed their appreciation by making him an honorary member of the Class of ’64 and gave him his very own class ring. It was yellow sapphire in 14K gold setting, with a ship on one side and crest on the other, and was engraved with “LBJ.”
It has disappeared from the Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, and they would very much like to have it back.
FDR’s Official White House Portrait: Ellen Emmet Rand’s name may not ring a bell today. But in her time, she painted portraits of the rich and famous.
She tried to paint President Theodore Roosevelt once but eventually gave up because, in her words, “he couldn’t sit still.”
Rand didn’t have that problem in 1934 when Teddy’s cousin Franklin sat for her. FDR liked his painting so much, it became his official White House portrait.
At some point after his death, and for reasons unknown and difficult to understand, the portrait was moved to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.
One day in the spring of 2004, Boston University professor Peter Rand was doing research at FDR’s library, and asked if he could see Grandma Ellen’s painting. We’re sorry, the library staff told him, but it’s not available for viewing. No big deal, he thought. Museums frequently rotate displays to keep visitors coming back. He would catch it next time.
Rand’s got a letter from the library six months later saying the painting was missing. “I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” Rand recalled. The letter said nobody could remember seeing the portrait since it was moved to temporary storage in 2001. It was  more than 5-feet high and 4-feet wide, housed in a gilt frame and stored in a 250 pound art crate.
The painting remains listed in the FBI’s National Stolen Art database of stolen art and cultural property.
Abe Lincoln’s Telegrams: If Lincoln were alive today, we would call him a Technology Geek. He loved the latest inventions and scientific advancements, fully grasping their practical benefits and applications.
One of his favorite devices was the telegraph. He appreciated the ability to communicate instantaneously with anyone, in any part of the country, at any hour of the day or night. There was a telegraph office adjacent to the White House in the War Department (where the Old Executive Office Building stands today). 
The government saved all those documents. Because they were written in Lincoln’s own hand, they’re very valuable today. Many reveal the ho-hum daily drudgery of a president in wartime. 
But when presidential items are lost or stolen, you, me, and every American are poorer for the loss.