When Abraham Lincoln signed the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, he said, “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right.” Just 26 signed copies of the historic document that freed the slaves were produced. Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries will offer one of them, bearing Lincoln’s signature, on June 26th in New York, where it’s expected to sell for $1.8m to $2.4m.One of the largest effects of the document was to permit African Americans to join the North’s army, which sorely needed manpower. Initially, the Civil War had been a battle to preserve the Union. With the Emancipation Proclamation, the war became a campaign to end slavery. The seller of the document is an anonymous collector, who has owned it for 40 years.
As Much As $2.4m Expected For Emancipation Proclamation
June 12, 2012
High Prices For Fitzgerald First Editions
June 12, 2013Riding the Fitzgerald wave created by Baz Luhrmann’s movie version of ‘The Great Gatsby,” a first edition of the author’s “Flappers and Philosophers” has sold at a Sotheby’s book auction in New York for $119,000, almost doubling its high estimate of $60,000. At the same event, a first edition of “Gatsby” once owned by author Malcolm Cowley achieved a price of $112,500. The book, which came with its rare original dust jacket, included the notes Fitzgerald made in his own copy, which Cowley dutifully transcribed.
Read more...
Potter’s First Edition (with scribbles): $228,000
May 23, 2013For some reason, many authors have a compulsion to write and draw on first editions of their books, as R.K. Rowling did when she scribbled and drew on 43 pages of “Harry Pottter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (“Sorcerer’s Stone” to Yanks). That copy sold at a charity auction in London this week for $228,000 after fierce bidding. It went to an anonymous buyer on the phone.
Read more...
Milton Berle’s Jokes Laugh To The Bank
May 8, 2013For $158,000 a bidder got Milton Berle’s library, including books and boxes of bound scripts and personal correspondence, but he didn’t get the comedian’s thousands of one-liners and jokes carefully catalogued over the decades. That file went for another $65,000 at Bonham’s Entertainment auction this week.
Read more...Contributors
Rising Value of Unrestored Cars
By Malcolm Welford, Vintage Car Specialist
