Press Release

Wilton, CT, USA, July 23, 2024 -- A letter handwritten in German and signed by Albert Einstein from 1937, a two-page letter written and signed by Davy Crockett in 1834 while he was a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, and a two-page letter written and signed by Lee Harvey Oswald to his brother from 1961 are just a few of the expected top performers in University Archives’ online-only Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Books & Americana auction planned for Wednesday, August 7th.

The auction will start promptly at 10:00 am Eastern time. All 572 lots in the catalog are up for viewing and bidding now – on the new and improved University Archives website – www.UniversityArchives.com – as well as Invaluable.com, Auctionzip.com and LiveAuctioneers.com. Phone and absentee bids will also be taken. Items signed by many of history’s brightest luminaries will come up for bid.

“The August 7th auction is bursting with exceptional items from every imaginable collecting category, from U.S. Presidential, Science, and Americana, to World Leaders, Literature, and Sports,” said John Reznikoff, the president and owner of University Archives. “As in our June sale, our August sale will feature a grouping of unique historical pieces deaccessioned from the prestigious Forbes Collection, as well as a significant number of lots relating to Ronald Reagan.”

The Reagan items include signed and annotated speech drafts, correspondence, and photos. Americana collectors will delight in the array of 19th and 20th century political ephemera. “Our August sale is also brimming with an unusually full slate of visually arresting 18th to 20th century works on paper, including engravings, etchings, lithographs, broadsides, drawings, photographs, photogravures, and advertisements,” Mr. Reznikoff said. “This is an auction not to be missed.”

Lot 541 is the one-page autograph letter in German signed by Albert Einstein, dated October 9, 1937, and addressed to fellow physicist Cornelius Lanczos. The letter features about 100 words in Einstein’s hand as well as around six mathematical formulae including two instances of Rik = 0, Einstein’s second-most famous equation after E = MC2. The letter investigating general relativity through tensor calculus has an estimate of $35,000-$50,000.

Lot 521 is the two-page autograph letter signed by Davy Crockett, then a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, dated April 9, 1834 and addressed to a Maine publisher. In the letter, Crockett is critical of President Andrew Jackson’s executive overreach, writing, “… Jackson shall wield both sword and purse. His will is to be the law of the land.” The letter should bring $18,000-$24,000.

Lot 71 is the two-page autograph letter signed by Lee Harvey Oswald dated November 30, 1961, less than two years before the Kennedy assassination, while Oswald was self-exiled in the Soviet Union. In a moment of homesickness, Lee asks his older brother Robert to send him an American football and play diagrams so that his Russian friends cab learn “a little bit of American sport” (est. $8,000-$9,000).

Lot 116 is a lengthy 19-page speech draft prepared by President Ronald Reagan, comprised of 4 pages of holograph notes and 15 pages of heavily corrected and annotated typed notes, circa July 3, 1981. In the draft, Reagan discusses the historical origins of the formation of the Grand Old Party in the 1850s, referencing Abraham Lincoln twice and slavery twice (est. $7,000-$9,000).

For more information about University Archives and the 572-lot, online-only Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Books & Americana auction scheduled for Wednesday, August 7th, starting at 10:00 am Eastern time, please visit www.universityarchives.com. Updates are posted frequently.

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