Lincoln-inscribed Photograph, ca. 1860
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GUEST:
It's a photograph of Abraham Lincoln that's been in my family since 1862. It was given to my great-great-grandfather who had campaigned for Lincoln in Ohio. He was from Ohio, and I believe he lived in Cleveland at this particular time. In 1862, my great-great-grandfather and grandmother moved to California, and they went to California by sea.
APPRAISER:
The long way.
GUEST:
And on the way, the story... the family story is is that they stopped at the White House by invitation, had dinner with Lincoln and his family. And my great-great- grandfather was asked if there was anything President Lincoln could do for him, and the story is that he offered him a job. But because they were in the midst of moving to the West Coast, he asked only for this autographed photograph.
APPRAISER:
We see photographs of Lincoln. The carte de visite, the small cards, come up quite a bit. But a photograph of this size... these are an oversize format. Albumen salt prints, they're called. And they're typically much more for presentation and special occasions or persons to be given to. You can see he’s the unbearded Lincoln, not the $5 bill Lincoln as we know. This was taken in '59, '60, before he came to Washington, because by the time he came to Washington, he had his signature beard. C.S.-- Christian German was the photographer, not a very well known Springfield photographer at the time. He photographed Lincoln without the beard and then later before he did leave to come to D.C., he photographed him again with his beard. So it's fabulous that it's the early photograph of Lincoln from when he had been debating, the Lincoln-Douglas debate period, without the beard. You came in with this letter, and I looked at the letter, I said, "Oh, that's earlyish handwriting." It's not as early as the picture, the photograph, but it's from 1948. You gave me the basic history of it, which tells the story about having dinner, sitting down with the Lincolns, and just those little anecdotal details that bring this story and the background to life. If we didn't have this, and you just walked in with this, it's not inscribed with a date, it doesn't say where it was signed. Without this, we're really lost with that connection. The frame is period. It mentions in the letter that he had it framed soon after he was given the picture. It's in great condition. The one thing, archivally, you may want to do is some of this toning I see, which is typical of the matting from that period, turns a brownish. We want to make sure it doesn't get onto to the mount itself. This albumen photograph is mounted onto a mount that could tone with time, and we want to be careful that it doesn't. The signature is very clear. The glass... you did mention, when we spoke, that you had museum glass put.
GUEST:
Museum glass.
APPRAISER:
UV protective glass, that's very critical. Overall value, very interesting. They're very rare, this size format, on the market inscribed. The ones that have come up have brought some pretty significant amounts. One, especially because he had the beard, sold for $140,000 at auction.
GUEST:
You're kidding.
APPRAISER:
I'm not kidding. Because of the format, it was inscribed in Springfield, so I don't want to mislead you. This doesn't have the detail. That was the first one with the beard. So it's slightly apart from that, so that's why I would give this an auction estimate of a $70,000 to $100,000 auction estimate. I think that's...
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
Yes, and I think for insurance, certainly for insurance, I would be thinking about putting a $120,000 insurance value on it.
GUEST:
Okay.
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