Custer, Sitting Bull, Jefferson, Lennon, and Hemingway Headline Fine Autographs and Artifacts Sale
Ernest Hemingway autograph letter to a Scribner's bookseller referring to The Old Man and the Sea: "Hope you like my new one".
RR Auction's online September Fine Autographs and Artifacts auction includes more than 800 lots and is anchored by highlights from the Civil War and American West Collection of Dr. Joseph Matheu.
Among the offerings is a candid 1952 Ernest Hemingway handwritten signed letter referencing The Old Man and the Sea sent to bookseller C.W. Wilcox in which the author requests a list of books and references his “new one”, written shortly before publication of his Pulitzer Prize–winning novella.
Other highlights include:
- a 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. signed certificate presented to Congressman James G. O’Hara honoring his support of the Civil Rights Act featuring the signatures of MLK, James Farmer, Whitney Young, Dorothy Height, Roy Wilkins, Jack Greenberg, and James Forman
- a partly printed 1804 vellum document signed by President Thomas Jefferson and countersigned by Secretary of State James Madison granting land to Elias Boudinot, a Revolutionary War figure and former President of the Continental Congress
- from the collection of Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, a John Lennon signed promotional photo for Lennon’s Rock ’n’ Roll album
- a Sitting Bull and his nephew One Bull signed First National Bank of Lafayette check from 1884
Also included in the auction is a substantial lock - more than 50 strands preserved in a Riker box - of General George Armstrong Custer’s blond hair, plus a period carte-de-visite portrait of the cavalry commander.
Bidding concludes September 10.
