Heritage Signature Auction – Americana & Political
February 25 & 26
www.HA.com/6269
CurtisL@HA.com
214-409-1352

DALLAS — Sometimes, it pays to aim high. It certainly did in 1864 for Mary L. Westerman, an officer of the local Soldiers’ Aid Society in Tazewell County, Ill. She wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln, urging him to support the cause with a donation to a Sanitary Fair that was conducted on October 18 of that year. Her letter, sent a little over two weeks before the event and available for digital viewing through the Library of Congress, paid off. A letter from former Secretary of State John Hay to Westerman confirms that the 16th American president sent six signed cartes de visite (CDV), one of which will find a new home when it is sold in Heritage Auctions’ Americana & Political Signature Auction on February 25-26. Bidding starts at $50,000.

“This is an exceptionally rare item, a must-have for any serious collector of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia or presidential items,” says Curtis Lindner, Americana and political director at Heritage Auctions. “Lincoln is the most aggressively collected of all US presidents, and to find something like this that he signed represents an exceptionally rare opportunity.”

This CDV is believed to be one of the six known that Lincoln signed for donation to the event, as evidenced not only by the text on its verso, but also by the display held by the Allen County Public Library in the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, framing Hay’s original letter with two of the six photographs sent. Both images match the offered example.

Another Lincoln-related lot is a letter from Captain Leonard B. Blinn providing eyewitness account of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln that includes three pages of text written by Blinn, of the 100th Ohio Infantry. In this letter, Blinn wrote to his wife, telling her of the murder he witnessed and sharing the sorrowful effect the loss had on the city. Bidding begins at $8,500.

Also featured in the auction is a double partner’s desk, circa 1857, from the US House of Representatives, starting at $17,500. The desk was designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, who is known best for also designing the dome in the US Capitol building. Manufactured by Doe, Hazleton & Co, of Boston, for the newly opened House of Representatives chamber in 1857, this double desk is one of those believed to have been placed in a semicircular arrangement in the chamber, a design detail that accounted for the unusual obtuse angle at which the two sections of the desk are joined. Who occupied this desk from 1857 to 1873 is not known, but it likely was acquired by Nehemiah G. Ordway of New Hampshire, who was Sergeant of Arms for the House from 1863-73, when furnishings were updated in the chamber during the final year of his tenure. It was sold early in the Twentieth Century by an antiques dealer in Ordway’s birthplace of Warner, N.H., and remained in the family of the purchaser for more than 100 years.

A compass personally owned by Daniel Boone comes from the pioneer and frontiersman who was one of the legendary figures in American folklore and will start at $10,000. Included among the provenance that accompanies the compass are two newspaper articles from the 1930s that tell the story of the transfer of the compass to a young friend named Abraham Miller, who had learned to shoot from Boone. When Miller, at just 12 years old, killed a panther threatening his family’s cattle, Boone was so proud that he gave this compass to Miller.

The auction also includes two lots of silver from the Tumbaga wreck off of Grand Bahama Island in 1528. One of the lots, a shipwreck silver round that starts at $10,000, is a significant piece of Aztec history with a diameter of 10 inches, is 2 inches thick at the center and weighs 517 ounces (more than 32.3 pounds). The round has Assayer marks, but they are difficult to read due to the casting of the silver.

Heritage Auctions is at 2801 West Freeport Airway. Viewing available by appointment only on February 24. For additional information, 214-528-3500 or www.ha.com.

Inquiries:
Curtis Lindner
214-409-1352
CurtisL@HA.com
Abraham Lincoln: Signed Carte de Visite
U. S. House of Representatives: Circa 1857 Double Partner’s Desk
James Buchanan: 1856 Jugate Etched Glass Tumbler
Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Andrew Johnson: Full Standing Bronze Study
Lincoln & Hamlin: Jugate Brady Ribbon from the famed J. Doyle DeWitt Collection
Roosevelt & Garner:
Phenomenal Jugate Campaign Tire Cover
A Carved Bone Napoleonic Prisoner-of-War Ship Model Circa Early 1800’s
Andrew Jackson Wood Figurehead
Abraham Lincoln: Oil on Canvas Attributed to George Henry Story
Abraham Lincoln: Portrait Sash from Faneuil Hall Boston, MA Rally
Abraham Lincoln: White House Dinner Plate
Abraham Lincoln Assassination Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth: Display with Signatures and Slabbed Wallpaper from Ford’s Theater