A piece of televangelism history is going on the auction block. More than 15,000 hours of taped "PTL Club" episodes are scheduled to be sold later this month.
Ben Dyer, an Atlanta venture capitalist, and his partners now own the tapes of the trend-setting televangelism show that ended in 1987 amid a sex and money scandal.
An entrepreneur had the tapes and was planning to extract performances of gospel singers and musicians and sell or air them. He defaulted on his loan from Dyer and his partners, and they got four tractor-trailer loads of 2-inch tapes.
"It's close to 100 tons of tapes," Dyer said.
Ocean Tomo, a West Coast firm, will put them on the block March 26 and 27.
The shows were headed by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, who had an accessible and emotional style of preaching and entertaining.
"We all know what came later," Dyer said. "But the work that Jim and Tammy Faye did was extraordinary. They are very watchable."
Shar Graham, a spokeswoman for Jim Bakker, who lives in Branson, Mo., said Bakker has been told the tapes are appraised at about $8 million.
Tammy Faye Messner died in July 2007 at age 65. She divorced Jim, her husband of 30 years, in 1992 while he was in prison for defrauding followers of their television ministries of millions of dollars.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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