Bruce Lee Business Card with Outstanding Provenance

Business card belonging to martial artist and film actor Bruce Lee (1940-1973), ca. 1968. Elegant and simple, the card has a plain cream background embossed with Lee's name at center. In near fine condition, 3.5" x 2". Provenance: Bruce Lee gifted this to close friend Herb Jackson, who in turn gave it to his son, Mark Ashton-Jackson. Accompanied by a photocopy of the original Letter of Authenticity signed by Mark Ashton-Jackson dated May 25, 2018.

Bruce Lee's training schools and feature-length films did much to popularize martial arts in the mid-century United States. Born Lee Jun-fan in San Francisco but raised in Hong Kong, the teenager had relocated to the United States to avoid growing gang violence in the British colony. Lee, who had studied martial arts primarily as self-defense, started teaching kung fu in the United States in 1959. This was somewhat controversial as martial arts traditionalists maintained that non-Chinese should not be trained.

Lee opened his Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Seattle, and then in Oakland, in the early 1960s. In the latter branch, Lee developed a close personal friendship with one of his pupils, Herb Jackson. Jackson became one of Lee's workout partners and even made safety modifications to some of Lee's training equipment.

The copy of the Letter of Authenticity reads in part: "I, Mark Ashton-Jackson, state that this item was owned and used by Bruce Lee, the legendary martial arts and action film star. This item was given to my father Herb Jackson as a gift from Bruce Lee in and around 1968. My father Herb Jackson was a very close friend and confidant of Bruce Lee and was also one of his private backyard students in Los Angeles in the mid to late 1960s…"

In July 1967, Bruce Lee founded his own martial arts style and philosophy called Jeet Kune Do. Lee had felt restricted by traditional martial arts rules, so his new style eliminated them. As an instructor, Lee not only allowed but encouraged his students to fight with the spontaneity, ingenuity, and abandon that you would encounter in real street fighting. Jeet Kune Do has been alternately described as "the style of no style," "the art of fighting without fighting," and "minimal movement with maximum effect." Jeet Kune Do combined elements of martial arts, boxing, fencing, and other athletic forms. Around this time, Lee's wholistic attitude towards health and wellness coalesced and informed his later training.

Lee died prematurely at age 32. His feature-length films, some of which were acted in, written, and directed by him, include: The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), Way of the Dragon (1972), Enter the Dragon (1973), and The Game of Death (1978, posthumous.)

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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