Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 1

Price Realized: $ 5,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
"THE ACQUISITION THAT STARTED IT ALL" (AUTOGRAPHS.) Envelope franked by Lincoln as a congressman. Envelope, 3 x 5 1/2 inches, signed "Free A. Lincoln M.C.", addressed in his hand to the Commissioner of Pensions in Washington, and docketed in another hand "Letter to Wm Hart returned to Mr. L, Jany(?) 26 / 49"; quite browned and brittle, with 2 closed tears (one crossing Lincoln's "Free") and a 1/2-inch area of loss to upper left corner, mount remnants on verso. [Washington?], 1849

Additional Details

Lincoln had franking privileges as a member of Congress from 1847 to 1849. Although his franked presidential covers turn up periodically, not many of his Congressional covers from this period have survived. The most recent other example we have traced at auction was in 1964. Purchased by Holzer in the late 1960s "when barely out of my teens," per his introduction to this catalogue: "the acquisition that started it all."