"The future of American autograph collecting seems to be directed to the illustration of the beginnings of our industrial and financial life rather than to the forming or attempting to form what would only result in being very inferior sets of 'Signers,' generals, governors, &c. The beginnings of newspaper life, of iron manufacturing, of cotton milling, of cotton culture, of the steamboat business, of maritime life along the Atlantic seaboard, and such efforts with special attention to great inventions, such as the telephone, telegraph, typewriter, electric light, automobile, flying machines, and many hundreds of smaller discoveries. The gathering of documents connected with the foundations of great industries, such as the steel business, is now being carried forward by collectors of great wealth who have drawn their immense fortunes from the source which they endeavour to retrace to its petty beginning. You can readily understand how perfectly natural such a form of collecting appears when you view it in the light of our national development and our national character. I myself have taken up certain lines of collecting in this field and which I find of the greatest interest."
Mr. C. E. Goodspeed, of 5A, Park Street, Boston, who, like Mr. Benjamin of New York, issues frequently very useful sale catalogues of autograph letters, also writes me:—
"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). That letter sold for $300.00, but would bring perhaps twice that to-day. The most interesting historical document, perhaps, which I have had was a letter from Governor Hutchinson to the Committee of the town of Boston in answer to the demand of the Committee for the removal of the troops. This was written the day after the famous Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. I have had a great many Washington letters, but never any of great historical importance. An interesting note might be made of those aggravating incidents where autographs are brought in by parties who wish to find their value, but who would not sell them. Amongst items of this class I may mention, having been brought in quite recently, Benjamin Franklin's famous epitaph for his own tombstone, written in his own autograph; it is found in all the "Lives of Franklin"; an autograph album containing about a dozen letters from Byron to Lady Blessington; a letter from Byron to his wife, written after their separation, but never sent, as Lady Blessington advised against it and retained the letter; also in the same album three or four letters from Dickens to Lady Blessington; two charming Thackeray letters followed with pretty pen-and-ink sketches; an autograph poem of Thackeray's; two autograph poems, each of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning; and poems of Landor, and others! Was not that a nice little collection, and was it not an aggravation not to be able to even make an offer on it?"
The President of the Anderson Auction Company (12, East 46th Street, New York) has most obligingly sent me a priced catalogue of the Haber Sale, already more than once mentioned in these pages.
Mr. L. J. Haber has also given me the price at which the letters sold were originally acquired. If the reader bears in mind that five dollars represent a pound he will easily be able to judge not only the prices which now rule in the autograph market of New York, but the rise in them which has taken place in the past ten or twenty years. No list of this kind has ever before appeared:—
From Parts I. and II.
| Cost. | Sale Price. | |||
| Lot No. | $ | $ | ||
| 9 | Aldrich | 7.50 | 32.00 | |
| 90 | Presidents | 415.00 | 930.00 | |
| 312 | Browning | (E. B.) | 27.50 | 100.00 |
| 315 | " | " | 20.00 | 37.00 |
| 326 | Bryant (W. C.) | 9.00 | 13.00 | |
| 355 | Burroughs (John) | 7.50 | 46.00 | |
| 409 | Mark Twain | 15.00 | 150.00 | |
| 410 | " | " | 5.00 | 100.00 |
| 422 | Coleridge | 12.00 | 29.00 | |
| 431 | Cooper | 13.00 | 85.00 | |
| 478 | De Quincey | 10.00 | 34.00 | |
| 486 | Dickens | 12.50 | 53.00 | |
| 553 | Emerson | 18.00 | 115.00 | |
| 768 | Hardy (T.) | 5.00 | 36.00 | |
| 774 | Harris (Joel C.) | 10.00 | 53.00 | |
| 775 | Harte (Bret) | 24.00 | 161.00 | |
| 784 | Hawthorne[73] | 16.00 | 75.00 | |
| 825 | Holmes | 28.00 | 195.00 | |
| 881 | Irving | 120.00 | 445.00 | |
| 929 | Keats | 125.00 | 2,500.00 | |
The above-mentioned autographs were either included in books or bound up separately. The following apparently were detached letters:—
Part III.