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Vintage Autograph Reference Books - Part 3

Part 3 begins with a charming autograph reference book and overall a fine book for your reference shelf.

Chats on Autographs, author A.M. Broadley. Frederick A. Stokes Co. Publisher, 1910. Contains 12 Chapters plus the index.

Early Chapters include, Autograph Collecting Generally, Modern Autograph Collector and his Equipment, The Caveat Emptor Of Autograph Collecting, Some Famous Autograph Finds, Royal Autographs, Literary Autographs of Three Centuries, Autographs of Music, Drama and Art, A Century of American Autograph Collecting and much more. Our copy contains a two page a.l.s. from a Mr. Telamon Cuyler who claims he is the author of the book. Mr. Cuyler is mentioned on page # 238. Mr. C.E. Goodspeed states: “I think the most interesting autograph which I have ever had was a one page quarto letter from Martha Washington to Mrs. John Adams, the wife of the second President of the U.S. in answer to Mrs. Adams’ letter of condolence on the death of her husband (President Washington). This letter sold for $300.00.

               Copy of an a.l.s. of John Wesley, June 14,1788

Our copy also includes a scarce handwritten note by the author.

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JOLINE, Adrian H.  Rambles In Autograph Land.  G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913.

Three hundred thirty-one pages, illustrated with many portraits and facsimiles.  Many chapters including Facsimiles and Forgeries,  Autographs in Literature, The Autograph Market, Private Vendors and Their Ways, Collectors and Their Methods, My Own Collection, 19^th Century Writers, English Statesmen,  Colonial Notables, American Authors New England Philosophers and a few more.  

                   Below is an a.l.s. of Percy Shelley  April, 27, 1817  

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SEYMOUR, George Steele  Adventures With Books and Autographs. The Bookfellows, Chicago, 1920 Publishers.. Limited Edition of 500 copies of the First Edition. Dedicated to Walter Benjamin, Man of Letters. Eighty-one pages, with several illustrations. The introduction starts with “This is the book for which the world has waited so long and patiently  it has been in the making for over 40 years….”

                                                Above are some Interesting comments from George Steele Seymour.

Our copy is inscribed by the author.

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GRATZ, Simon  A Book About Autographs Publisher, William J. Campbell, Philadelphia. 1920.Limited to 500 numbered copies. Three hundred ninety-four pages with illustrations.  Chapters on The Taste for Collecting Autographs, Qualities that Determine Value of Autographs, Various Ways in Which Collections Have Been Formed, Concerning Spurious of False Autographs,Increase in Market Value, European Collections of the Olden and Recent Times, Private Collections in the United States, Public Collections of Autographs, Migration and Pedigree of Autographs and Conversation of Autographs. This volume ends with a very lengthy thirty  page index.

Our copy contains a rare autograph letter signed of the great Simon Gratz.

Printed obituary on inside blank leaf by Walter R. Benjami which states in part Simon Gratz died in Augst 1925, only five years after the publishing of this book.  “…the United States lost its greatest collector….He was the greatest expert in autographs in the United States. I considered his judgment on an autograph as infallible…..”

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GEIGY, C.H.  Handbook of Famous Facsimiles of Famous Personages. Basle (Switzerland), Rudolf Geering, Publisher, 1925. Two hundred eighty-seven pages , very heavily illustrated  and ending with the index.  If anyone is looking for facsimiles, this is the book for you.

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BUTLER, Joseph G.  Autographed Portraits, Collection of Joseph G. Butler, Jr., The Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, Ohio. The Vindicator Printing Co. Youngstown, Ohio,  1927.  Four hundred seventy-two pages, heavily illustrated.

 Below is a sample illustration from Autographed Portraits.

                                                Autographed  Portraits contains around 240 signed portraits.

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CHARNWOOD, Lady   An Autograph Colllection and the Making of it. Henry Holt and Co (1930). Three hundred eighteen pages with illustrations and a handy index. A charming read. Contains 20 chapters. She starts by saying   “In these days American money takes the best items on the English market to the United States…..”

Our copy has a rare 4 pages a.l.s with excellent content by Lady Charnwood.

Illustrated are pages one and four.

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MADIGAN, Thomas F.   Word Shadows of the Great, The Lure of Autograph Collecting. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1930. Three hundred pages with illustrations and an index.

                                            Below is an illustration from Word Shadows of the Great

Our copy bears a desirable presentation inscription to a noted autograph collector.

Please note: This book was also published in a very special Limited Edition.

Beautifully bound and comes with a slipcase.  Each copy comes with a signature or al.s. of a very special person. Some of the items inserted in these copies were names of importance but at the time of little value.  Our copy contains an  a.l.s. of G. Marconi.

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WADHAM, Charles King  Some Reminiscences and Reflections on Collecting Autographs.  Privately printed Office of the Unversity Press, New Haven, Connecticut, March 1931.  The author says: “As I walked the streets I often saw many of the distinguished men and women who made Boston the famous literary center of those days…” He then talks about meeting some of the giants of those days. He often saw John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Tyndall, Oliver Wendell Holmes Phillips Brooks and several more. Mr.King goes into detail about meeting these celebrities and one reading this may feel that they are walking alongside Mr. King on his attempts to acquire special autographs.

We were going to stop at autogaph referene books published up to1930 but we found this scarce title by Charles King Wadman so interesting and that most collectors will never find a copy.

Reference books on autographs after 1930 are readily available at used book stores and on ebay.  Good luck hunting!

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An interesting side line is trying to find catalogs of the early companies who dealt in autographs.  It’s nice to see what was available in the early days of collecting autographs.  Illustrtated below is a small offering of autographs  from a book dealer (circa 1920’s) who is still in business today.

VINTAGE Autograph Reference Books (Part 2 of 3)

                                                                              By Stephen Koschal

We will begin Part 2 with an interesting and uncommon autograph reference book. Talks About Autographs. by George Birkbeck Hill.  London 1896. One hundred ninety-one pages, illustrated. Interesting reading.  Mr. Hill only owned two American autographs. On page one hundred twenty-two he proudly illustrates a George Washington check from his collection written during the last year of his life.

                                                     Talks About Autographs

                       George Washngton check from Hills collection

                  George Birkbeck Hill went to his grave not knowing his prized check was a Robert Spring forgery.

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 This next little treasure is a must for autograph exemplars.  Refreshing to see a female author, Autographs and Birthdays of Eminent Persons. Compiled by Alice M. Rushton, New Amsterdam Book Company, New York 1898. Four hundred-eight pages, heavily Illustrated. Over 1,800 exemplars many between 1400’s to 1700’s.

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The following little treasure is Autograph Collecting by Henry T. Scott, M.D.  London.  l. Upcott Gill, no date, a massivie 437 pages , sections on early letters, destruction on writings, celebrated collectors, unexpected discoveries, lost treasures, concerning franks,  forgeries, paper/ink, forgers and their dupes, literary hoxes, Shakespeare forgeries, original letters often mistaken for copies, and this is up to only page 133.  Heavily illustrated. This book ends wth 168 pages of a comprehensive price list.

          The following page is just a small sample from Autograph Collecting.

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Adrian H. Joline (1849-1912).  Distinguished New York Lawyer, Author and collector of autographs.  At the time of his death, he was one of the oldest American collectors of autographs and one of the most authoritative.  He contributed articles for such prestigious magazines such as The Autograph, A Bi-Monthly Magazine published by P.F. Madigan and  The Collector, a monthly magazine published by Walter R. Benjamin.  Mr. Joline’s contribution to the autograph community was building a very fine collection of autographs and writing several books on autographs. Mr. Madigan stated that Joline's delightful  Meditations of an Autograph Collector is perhaps the most interesting work that has been written on the subject.  Published by Harper & Brothers, 1902. Three hundred-sixteen pages, illustrated. We have in our reference library Mr. Joline’s personal copy.

                               Bookplate in Joline’s personal copy of Meditations of an Autograph Collector

Signed copies of Joline's books are near impossible to find. Below is an illustration of Joline’s handwriting and signature.

                         Above is an illustration of a last page of a Charles Darwin a.l.s.

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 A delightful book published in London in 1904. One hundred seventy-seven pages followed by a few pages of books available for sale.  Nearly 30 illustrations.

Illustration on page 31 is an a.l.s. of Charles Dickens.

                                                           Illustrated below is from page 37, a Charles Dickens, Jr. a.l.s.

                                                      Signature of the author  George R. Sims

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 American Public Men  A Manual for Autograph Collectors by John A. Larkin. Printed by Dodd, Mead and Company, 1906. Limited to 350 numbered copies.

One hundred-two pages. This book contains 17 sections, listing all the names places/dates of all the members in that section. Starts with, Delegates To The Stamp Act October 7, 1765 In The Order In Which They Answered The Request and ending with the Justices of the Supreme Court.

This volume above contains a truckload of information, however it is most difficult to find.  Possibly one of the first books on the subject to be found in a limited, numbered edition.

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JOLINE, Adrian H.  Five years after his highly acclaimed book Meditations of an Autograph Collector, Joline publishes The Autograph Hunter and Other Papers.

Privately Printed, Alderbrink Press, Chicago 1907.  Limited edition of only 150 copies. A very interesting and amusing read, although one may need a dictionary to get through it. Mr. Joline introduces the word “autographomaniac” and speaks about the unpopular person who writes for autographs. Joline refers to letters or documents signed by a highly regarded person such as Charles I of England, that it is not only  delight of reading original letters and manuscripts of intrinsic merit, yet with the charm of reading comes the joy of possession.

Although you may find it very difficult to find any book by Jolin signed, you may be lucky enough to find a copy with his personal gift card.

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 Autograph Letters and Autographs of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, In the Possession of George C. Thomas. Philadelphia, Private Circulation 1908.  Pages not numbered but an eye appealing book. Illustrations of some of the signers. Alphabetical Index with dates and types of signed items.

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                                                                      VINTAGE Autograph Reference Books

                                                                                                                                                             By Stephen Koschal

For decades I have been asked about collecting old autograph reference books.  I believe it was in the 1970’s, that I wrote a popular article for the old Universal Autograph Collectors Club on this subject which earned me an award. Still, today books on autograph collecting are collected not only by dealers but by collectors as well.  However, unfortunately today, most educated collectors and dealers have little interest in writing a book on this subject.  Most are unwilling to share their knowledge.

 The one exception may be Ron Keurajian, the best-selling author of Collecting Historical Autographs (2017). 

Because of the amount of material available, this story will be written in at least three parts. The reference books in this three part article will end in 1931. Books after 1931 are usually available.

All collectors, dealers and authenticators that have visited my office are shocked at the size of my reference material.  This valuable resource has given me the advantage of writing and publishing over 600 educational articles on the subject of autograph collecting.

Many in this wonderful hobby of ours is hard to believe  that between 1747 thru 1866 at a minimum, 143 books were published on the subject of autograph collecting.  Most were published in London, others in Paris, Scotland and one in Germany is 1846.

It appears that the earliest autograph reference book I have was published in London in 1837 by Richard Glynn. It is a large book consisting of 112 pages.

The Autograph Portfolio   A Collection of Facsimile Letters from Eminent Persons. Very heavily illustrated, the illustrations are mostly of English persons except for Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

Illustrated above is an autograph letter signed by  Sir Christopher Wren dated June 21, 1699 from the Autograph Portfolio.

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The second autograph reference book I can find on my shelves is published in America in Massachusetts.  Autographs The American Orator by Lewis C. Munn 1856. This early book must have been very popular because in 1856, it was already in its Sixth Edition.

                                       Illustrated below are pages from The American Orator.

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An early favorite of mine was printed in Paris in 1883. Les Tres Anciens Manuscrits. An interesting item to me is because it is inscribed and signed by the author Leopold Delisle.

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 To me, it appears the autograph reference material in America basically started  on a large scale with autograph catalogs by dealer Charles De Forest Burns in August 1870.  Volume #1 consisted of 24 pages filled with historical information about autographs and ending with a list of priced autographs for sale.  In a dusty basement of a Boston book dealer, I discovered bound in leather the first three years of the Burns catalogs.  I found the information printed in these catalogs so Important, I reprinted the entire collection.

Interesting advertisement found in Burns catalog Vol. III. No. 1, February 1873.

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The next major movement in autograph reference material came in September 1, 1887.  It took 18 years for Walter Benjamin to produce his first catalog of autographs after the publishing of Burns  first volume.

    Some what similar in appearance to the Burns catalogs, printed was the following statement on issue #922 of The Collector.

                                                                     For the Benjamin’s to make the above statement “the first genuine autographic paper ever published in this country…” were they  unaware Burns published his catalogs 18 years earlier?  

 Autographs of the Benjamin’s. Walter Benjamin, his daughter Mary Benjamin and Christopher Jaeckel who eventually closed the business.

It certainly appears that after the publication of the Charles De Forest Burns catalogs and afterwards the publication of the Benjamin catalogs, neither having illustrations, there was a real thirst for knowledge of autograph collecting in America.

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Another autograph reference book to be written by an American was in 1889.  An Essay on the Autographic Collections of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution.  Lyman C. Draper is the author and published by Burns & Sons, N.Y. 1889.  An interesting volume, remarkably it has no illustrations. However, at the end of the book there are several pages covering the Robert Spring Autograph Forgeries. Our copy is inscribed and signed by the author.

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 In 1891 an interesting large book on autographs was published in England.  Although there is only one illustration in this book, it has a wealth of information. A Guide To The Collector Of Historical Documents, Literary Manuscripts and Autograph Letters. Authors, Rev. Dr. Scott and Samuel Davey, London, 1891, two hundred-nineteen pages. Contains fifteen interesting chapter including one on how to form a collection,  History of Preservation, Forged Autographs and How To Protect Them and so much more.

Below is the illustration from the above book A Guide to the Collector of Historical Documents.

                                                                                      End of Part 1

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                                                            Thomas Edison Autograph Collectors - Be Aware

The latest active scam to be aware of is purchasing a check being sold as signed by Thomas A. Edison.  Reason is the item just might be a well executed forgery.

What is happening frequently is some half-wit is purchasing genuine checks on eBay that are hand signed by Charles Edison. See below.

 The person doing this with take that check and work on the Charles Eison signature using a cotton swab and placed in a watered down glass of bleach. They will keep working on the signature until 95% of the signature almost disappears. The Charles Edison signature is now replaced with a decent forgery of a Thomas Edison signature.  If you look at the Thomas Edison signature under magnification you may be able to see a small light part of the original Charles Edison signature.

 As many readers have been aware of the warnings about COA’s , these checks usually come with  an impressive looking COA that is as fake as the Thomas Edison signature.  The company does not list an address or signature of some supposed authenticator.

 Another caveat is usually the prices on these forged checks are usually offered at $1,000 or more than the value of a genuine Thomas Edison signed check.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Their story. . .

A California book dealer offered a signed First Edition of  Collecting Books and Pamphlets Signed by the Presidents and First Ladies of the United States (1982). Author Stephen Koschal.  Book and dust jacket in very good condition.

The First Edition was hardcover with dust jacket, limitied to 500 numbered copies (unsigned).

The book was offered by a california book dealer on alibris, asking price $1,015.87.

It is believed this is a record breaking price for any book published regarding autogrphs.

I purchased a Charles Lindbergh autograph from an East Coast dealer named John Reznikoff.  It looks off to me but I am not an expert.  It is definitely from the time period of when Lindbergh would have lived but I've heard a lot of negative stuff about this dealer and wanted to ask if he, not mr. Reznikoff but Charles Lindbergh ever had a secretary sign for him.  I asked this of University Archives where a lady answered the phone yelling to the background and she said NO he never had a secretary sign for him.  Does anyone know if he changed his signature and when that might have been?

Including whistleblowers, those claiming to be abducted, etc.

Names including:

J. Allen Hynek

Jacques Vallee

Orson Welles

Raymond E. Fowwler

Larry Ellison

Betty and Barney Hill

Major Donald Keyhoe

George Adamski 

Bob Lazar, etc.  Email your offers to:  skoschal@aol.com