On Saturday, June 10, Blackwell Auctions will present a 120-year-old archive of items related to Abraham Lincoln. The collection has never before been offered for public sale and contains within it the research collection of New York attorney Daniel Patterson, who spent 30 years accumulating material in an attempt to prove the authenticity of a Thomas Hicks painting of Lincoln.
A searchable catalog is available here.
Several Lincoln portraits are held in the archive, the most important being an 1897 lithograph created and signed by Joseph DeCamp (American, 1858-1923). Commissioned by printer Louis Prang in 1896, DeCamp’s artwork was intended to be part of a series of portraits of famous Americans. Initially, the print run had been set at 100, however, fewer than a dozen Lincoln lithographs from that series were ever taken from the stone.
Other than the one in Blackwell’s auction (numbered 5/100), only one other is known to exist; it resides in the collection of the Boston Public Library. Two supporting letters from DeCamp to Prang – one accepting the commission and the other confirming that the job had been completed – are offered as a separate auction lot.
Presidential Collectibles
The many facets of America’s rich and unique history continue with a 14K gold Waltham hunter pocket watch that President Theodore Roosevelt presented in 1905 to a British ship captain who had rescued an American ship’s crew. With the U.S. Presidential Seal engraved on the front cover and an inscription on the inside back cover, the handsome timepiece is expected to make $12,000-$15,000.
Sports
Sports highlights include a rare 1956 Topps sheet of 110 uncut baseball cards including those representing more than a dozen Hall of Famers, and a Jackie Robinson single-signed baseball with JSA Letter of Authenticity.
All forms of bidding will be available including absentee or live via the Internet through LiveAuctioneers.com.
SOURCE Blackwell Auctions
