Nov 20, 2014 - Sale 2367

Sale 2367 - Lot 12

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 2,000
STRUGGLING TO SAVE HIS INVESTMENTS CODY, WILLIAM F. ("BUFFALO BILL"). Autograph Letter Signed, "W.F. Cody," to his attorney Henry Hersey ("My Dear Hersey"), explaining that he is putting his salary toward saving his hotels, laying out his plans to visit him in Denver to discuss [Harry] Tammen, asking that he not incur unnecessary expenses by visiting him in Chicago, and, in a postscript, sending a check for $100 to make a payment to the U.S. Printing Office [not present]. 1 page, 4to, "Chicago Shan-Kive and Round-Up" stationery; folds; matted with portrait and framed. Jamestown, NY, 12 August [1916]
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"To save my two hotels the Irma and Pahaska, I am useing [sic] all the 100 a day with the exception of the 100 weekly to the U.S. Printing O. as our show season closes Oct. 15th. Then I can come direct to Denver, and then we can take up the Tammen business. I'll be through with my show contract for this season and no danger of Tammen causeing [sic] trouble, which he would do, if we start anything before this season ends. So if you haven't anything thats realy [sic] urgent, and I being so pushed for ready money, would it not be as well for you not to come to Chicago, on my business."
Harry H. Tammen (1856-1924) was a Denver newspaper magnate who made a loan to Cody in 1913, but the latter could not maintain the payments. After the resulting seizure of his Wild West show, Cody was compelled to give up the use of the Buffalo Bill name and join Tammen's Sells-Floto Circus the following year. The contract terminated on the 15th of October, 1915, but Cody remained wary of Tammen as he toured with a new show in 1916, the Miller & Arlington Wild West Show, during which he used his own name in publicity and received a $100 per day salary.