University Archives will hold its next sale on April 23, 2025. 530+ lots of high-quality historical artifacts will be offered, including the Abraham Lincoln Collection, one of the largest, most important groupings of Lincoln material to ever hit the market. The Collection represents 60+ Lincoln lots, ranging in estimate from $200 - $800,000, with more than 12 items either written by or signed by Lincoln, ranging in estimate from $2,000 to $100,000.
The Abraham Lincoln Collection
Coinciding with the 160th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, the Abraham Lincoln Collection includes Lincoln autograph letters signed, autograph legal briefs, signed checks, and signed appointments. Also included is material representing the slain president through visual arts, ephemera, memorabilia, and relics.
The highlight of the Collection is Lot 65, an incredibly lifelike Hesler/Ayres interpositive - or silver gelatin positive transparency on glass - of Lincoln. Alexander Hesler’s negative of Lincoln was originally taken in Springfield, Illinois on June 3, 1860, and provided the basis of George B. Ayres’s ca. 1895-1900 interpositive. The Lincoln portrait is dramatically backlit in a custom-built presentation case, granting viewers an exquisite level of detail.
Lot 69 is an autograph letter signed by Lincoln on November 3, 1859, addressed to Peachy Quinn Harrison, a man whom Lincoln had just defended in his one and only murder trial. Lincoln urged Peachy to support a Republican candidate named John M. Palmer – the man who had been Lincoln’s opposing counsel in Peachy’s murder case!
Lot 66 is a possibly unique check signed by Lincoln on June 13, 1859, paying a small sum to law partner William H. Herndon. Lincoln checks have been a profitable investment in recent years, with checks dated 1859 - the year preceding Lincoln’s presidential nomination - being especially desirable.
Lot 72 is an autograph album belonging to a teenage girl named Ida Bowers, containing 74 important signatures including those of Abraham Lincoln as president, Andrew Johnson as president, and ten cabinet members of both administrations, including Seward, Welles, and others.
Science
Lot 503 is a scientific manuscript handwritten by Albert Einstein, relating to his Unified Field Theory from the 1940s. The manuscript contains about 446 words in German and 17 lines of scientific calculations in Einstein’s hand, stating in part (translated): “… I want to try to show that a truly natural choice for field equations exists."
Lot 494 is an autograph letter signed by Charles Babbage, dated December 1, 1832, discussing the location of a political meeting. In addition to being one of the leading lights of Britain’s 19th C. scientific movement, Babbage was also a twice-failed Liberal or Whig candidate for the House of Commons.
Lot 495 is an autograph letter signed by Charles Darwin, dated ca. April 14, 1863, addressed to British botanist Daniel Oliver. Darwin writes excitedly about Primula flowers, a species with an unusual sexual reproduction process. Darwin would later write about Primula in his 1877 book Different Forms of Flowers.
International
Lot 418 is an autograph letter in Hebrew signed by David Ben-Gurion on May 14, 1948, just one day after signing the Israeli Declaration of Independence, and two days before being elected to serve as the first Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion’s participation in the momentous events of a new nation-state inspired these comments to childhood friend Shlomo Lavi, (translated): “The Jewish people have attained the epitome, the very essence of their existence; the State of Israel is born."
Lot 464 is an autograph letter signed in the third person by Adam Smith, dated December 21, 1786, when the Scottish economist was hard at work on his influential treatise, The Wealth of Nations. Smith letters are extremely rare; there are fewer than 200 extant.
Literature
Lot 463 is an autograph manuscript signed by Ayn Rand, ca. mid-June 1962. The manuscript was Rand’s second submission to her short-lived weekly Los Angeles Times Sunday column. Entitled “War and Peace,” Rand’s draft exceeds 898 words and contains numerous edits, cross-outs, and rewrites. In it, Rand introduces the term "statism" to describe different types of big government: socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism, and the "welfare state."
Entertainment
Lot 350 is Marilyn Monroe’s personally owned and heavily annotated film script of Something’s Got To Give, her last film role. Of the 115 mimeographed script pages, Monroe has annotated 41pp, and heavily annotated 12pp with notes about lines, character and motivations, and blocking. Twentieth Century-Fox scrapped the film after Monroe’s death in August 1962.
Art
Lot 179 is an autograph letter in French signed by Paul Gauguin, n.d. but probably during his days as a Paris art student at the Académie Colarossi, a more free-thinking art school. than state-sanctioned art schools of the Belle Époque.
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