1864 Lincoln Campaign Poster
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GUEST:
In about 1985, a friend gave it to my husband. The friend got it from his grandmother. His grandma was from New York and came around the Horn in a sailing ship to San Francisco. She always just told him that she had pulled it off the side of a barn or a fence.
APPRAISER:
This poster was for the 1864 election, where Lincoln and Johnson were elected. And, of course, Lincoln was assassinated and Johnson became the president after him. This was a poster that would have been put on a barn or a fence for the campaign. And this kind of thing they wanted to do as quickly as possible because they had to put these all over, wherever the campaign went. And this one may have come from New York, where the grandmother came from. They didn't have as big paper as this, so what they did was they joined pieces of paper together. And if you look up along here, you can see a seam running down. That was a separate sheet of paper. These were done by wood block. So each color was put on with a different block. And because of that, sometimes you get off registers. And if you look right here at her helmet, you can see that the yellow is a little low, yet the red at the top is a little high. And, remember, this was for the campaign, and as they went to the next town they had to get more because they would glue them to barns or to fences. And most of them didn't survive. And, in fact, what's wonderful about this is that it has survived. And what I'm delighted is that you've restored this.
GUEST:
Yes, we did.
APPRAISER:
You had it deacidified, you had it lined, and they did inpaint. And you can see in here there's a gap that was filled in, but you preserved it. Lincoln is extremely popular. Campaign prints are very popular. The size, the drama of the picture, it's wonderful. I would put a price tag of, I think, $25,000 on it. Does that seem reasonable to you?
GUEST:
Probably very reasonable.
(laughing)
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