Press Release

Wilton, CT, USA, April 6, 2025 -- A vivid and lifelike photograph of Abraham Lincoln with Hesler/Ayres provenance, a one-page letter signed by Lincoln in 1859 and addressed to a man he’d defended in a murder trial, and a one-page autograph letter written in Hebrew in 1948 by the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion are three of many tantalizing items in University Archives’ next online-only auction slated for Wednesday, April 23rd, at 10am Eastern time.

All 536 lots in the Rare Autographs, Books & Photos auction (featuring the Abraham Lincoln Collection) are up for viewing and bidding now on the recently redesigned University Archives website – www.UniversityArchives.com – plus the popular platforms LiveAuctioneers.com, Invaluable.com and Auctionzip.com. Telephone and absentee bids will also be accepted.

“The April 23rd auction is bursting with high-quality historical artifacts from multiple collecting categories, in addition to the Abraham Lincoln Collection, one of the largest and most important groupings of Lincoln collectibles to cross the auction block in some time,” said John Reznikoff, the president and owner of University Archives.

The Abraham Lincoln Collection represents more than 60 Lincoln lots, ranging in estimate from $200 to $800,000, with more than twelve items either written by or signed by Lincoln, ranging in estimate from $2,000 to $100,000.

Indeed, the marquee item of the Abraham Lincoln Collection (in fact, the auction overall) is Lot 65, an interpositive, or silver gelatin positive transparency on glass, of Lincoln, from Lincoln scholar King Hostick through descent. Alexander Hesler’s collodion negative of Lincoln, Portrait Sitting No. 2, was originally taken in Springfield, Illinois in 1860.

The photographic image provided the basis of George B. Ayres’s circa 1895-1900 interpositive made several decades later. It was cleaned and extensively restored by the George Eastman House & International Museum of Photography & Film (Rochester, New York) in 2007. The Lincoln portrait is displayed in a custom-built presentation case (Estimate: $800,000-$1 million)

Lot 69 is the one-page autograph letter signed by Lincoln on November 3, 1859, addressed to Peachy Quinn Harrison, a young area man whom Lincoln had defended just four months earlier in what was Lincoln’s one and only murder trial. In it, Lincoln urges Peachy to exercise his political rights by supporting Republican candidate John Palmer (Estimate: $70,000-$100,000)

Lot 66 is a check signed by Lincoln on June 13, 1859, paying a small sum to law partner William H. Herndon. Lincoln checks have been a profitable investment in recent years, with checks dated 1859, the year preceding his presidential nomination, especially desirable. The same day that Lincoln paid Herndon, he bought a $2 brandy bottle from Diller’s Drug Store (Estimate: $20,000-$25,000)

Lot 72 is an autograph album belonging to a Rochester, New York teenage girl named Ida Bowers, whose brother was a Civil War veteran. The album contains 74 important signatures including those of Abraham Lincoln as president and Andrew Johnson as president (both with Beckett LOAs), and ten cabinet members of both administrations (Estimate: $15,000-$20,000)

University Archives is located at 88 Danbury Road (Suite #2A) in Wilton, Conn. For more information about University Archives and the Rare Autographs, Books & Photos, featuring the Abraham Lincoln Collection, on Wednesday, April 23rd, visit www.universityarchives.com.

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