November 11th, 1918 World War I Armistice Letter
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GUEST:
Well, this is a ceasefire from World War I. It belonged to our father. And I believe-- I wasn't really listening, like I should have.
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
But I do believe that it came from a very dear friend of his, of ours, who was our babysitter, also, but she was elderly, early on.
APPRAISER:
Right, okay.
GUEST:
(laughing)
APPRAISER:
All right.
GUEST:
Or she seemed like that to us when she was babysitting.
APPRAISER:
Well, it's a note dated November 11, 1918, the day that the armistice was signed to stop hostilities. At 9:10 a.m., an hour and 50 minutes before actual cessation of hostilities. And this basically is stating that, "You are to hold your positions, "you're not to move back at all, "you're to stay exactly where you are, and to send a sketch of your positions to us." Because 11:00 was when the hostilities would stop, but that was not the end of the war. This was the beginning of the end of the war, but then the politicians took over to work out how it was actually going to end. So if the Germans kept fighting after 11:00, they could not move back. They had to stay exactly where they were. So have you ever had it appraised before?
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
Okay, well, we talked about it at the table for a little while. And we all loved it. It's... these notes would have been given to all company commanders by their superior officers to tell them what to do when, when they were supposed to stop fighting. So there were a lot of these out there, but they don't survive today. Given the content and the date that this was written, we would put an auction estimate, conservatively, of $800 to $1,200, and could do better at auction, given the content and his service.
GUEST:
Oh, I see.
Appraisal Details
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