The February issue of the AE Comet, a catalogue of material selected from our members' online inventories, this month focuses on Washington, Lincoln and the Presidents. It's an apt subject given the Presidents Birthday holiday and the incandescent presidential primaries that are sweeping America faster than Keith Olbermann and Brian Williams can say "reporting live from Nashville." AE's listing members have contributed their thoughts, ideas and suggestions to create a catalogue of material that expresses both the readability and collect-ability of a subject that scales the Himalayas of American collecting and also reaches into the smallest towns and most distant places. Presidents have often emerged from obscure backgrounds and places, have appeared in newspaper articles, pamphlets and books long before [and after] they achieved collect-ability. Their influence is such that they became the subject of tens of thousands of printed items that include them or make reference to subjects now forever entwined with their Presidencies and the periods they led the nation.
Growing up in the Hudson Valley of New York State I experienced this first hand, this weaving of the human tapestry in which the President is an indelible single thread creating lasting connections across everyday life. Lyndon Johnson visited Ellenville, New York in August, 1966 to support Congressman Joseph Resnick. The underlying issue was Resnick's support of the Vietnam War and the visit President Johnson's gesture of gratitude to him. The dedication program for the Hospital dedicated in Ellenville that day is interesting ephemera, the visit a footnote to a tumultuous era.
Dan Weinberg, the Lincoln specialist in Chicago recently expressed it this way - "We study these individuals and their histories to both know them and better know ourselves. As we deeply study an historical person or era, we inculcate what we learn -- the joys, the sorrows, the achievements, the regrets – adding those years of experience to our own."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived in Hyde Park in nearby Dutchess County. Martin Van Buren lived in Kinderhook. Alton Parker, the Democrat's candidate for President in 1904, lived in Ulster. George Clinton, Vice President under both Jefferson and Madison was born in what is now Orange County and is buried at Kingston in Ulster County. Levi Parsons Morton, Vice President under Benjamin Harrison was a Dutchess County man. Even Abraham Lincoln had a Hudson Valley connection. He visited Poughkeepsie on April 25th, 1865 when his funeral train made a brief stop.
While for some the connection is place, for others it's a period, era or movement. Black history is a continuous thread that runs unbroken, if inconsistently, from first President George Washington to today's candidate Barack Obama. For others it's the women's movement, the campaign for the right to vote, the views of the candidates and Presidents, and all the many ancillary activities that involved and affected women down through the decades. The changing role of women in presidential politics could fill many public libraries. For collectors, shelves devoted to a single aspect of this movement can engage personal interest for a lifetime.
For others the hook is campaign paraphernalia. It turns out, that from the beginning, supporters have sought to wear a ribbon or pin that identifies them with a party, a movement and often particular candidates. Today this material emerges through dealers, at auction and on eBay as a substantially undocumented flow that is difficult to describe and hard to identify. Laid into an 1860 campaign biography, a ribbon for Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, becomes an iconic symbol of a great man and reminder that, through it all, great men and great ideas survive and prosper even in and sometimes because of, the desperation of the times. Neither book nor object is so powerful on their own as they are together. Evidence of real life mixed with the words of real history is for many the stuff of real passion.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.