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Scrawls, scribbles, and signatures are more
than stains on a page. Like snapshots, they capture moments,
preserving the pieces of thought that form the grand puzzle of human
experience. They reveal the
breadth and depth of personality and emotion. They are truly
History In Ink.
“Men don't change,”
President Harry S.
Truman observed. “The only thing new in the world is the history you don't
know.” The letters, photographs, and documents
of the famous and influential people of the past are great teachers.
The words and the handwriting connect us with yesteryear and bring history
to life.
Presidents
Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, among others, collected
historical letters and documents. Queen Victoria was an avid autograph
collector, and years later her great-grandson, King George VI, requested Truman's
signature for his daughter, now Queen Elizabeth II. Today there are thousands of
autograph collectors worldwide.
We want to share
with you the thrill of owning a genuine piece of history. So
please browse through our site.
(continued below)
Featured Items
Signers of the Declaration of
Independence:
Josiah Bartlett - autograph receipt signed by Bartlett as a
witness while serving as Chief Justice of New Hampshire, 3-2-1789, unframed
Samuel Huntington - wonderful double association document signed
by Huntington, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and William
and George Pitkin, owners of a gunpowder mill that supplied the
Continental Army, 12-9-1783, unframed
John Morton - Pennsylvania 2 shilling, 6 pence colonial currency
signed by Morton as a member of the colonial Assembly, 4-3-1772, unframed
George Ross - partially holograph legal document in which Ross, as
the attorney for the plaintiff, brings suit to collect on a promissory note,
6-25-1754, unframed
Roger Sherman -
autograph judicial order signed by Sherman,
the only person who signed all four major American founding documents,
including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, 5-9-1786,
unframed
William Williams - extremely early autograph document signed as
the town clerk of Lebanon, Connecticut, to note the recording of a deed,
2-20-1753, unframed
Jimmy Carter
Rare
signed handwritten note discussing the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy fifty years before, circa November 2013, unframed
Fidel Castro
Castro signs, in person, a copy of the centerpiece of his revolutionary
reforms: the Cuban Agrarian Reform Act of 1959, with documents of provenance,
unframed
Charles Darwin
Bold signature of the father of the theory of evolution on a card, unframed
Geronimo
Rare bold ink signature of the Apache Native American leader, signed in
person at the 1904 Worldʼs Fair in St. Louis, unframed
John F. Kennedy
Heavily hand-corrected pages from JFKʼs reading copy of a 1953
Jefferson-Jackson Day speech, early evidence of his effort to make himself
known nationwide and position himself to seek the White House, 5-14-1953,
unframed
Robert F. Kennedy
Writing to thank Florida Senator George
Smathers for congratulations on his election to the United States Senate
from New York, in a handwritten postscript Kennedy asks Smathers, an old
family friend, to “stop helping Mass. and begin to help New York,”
12-2-1964, unframed
Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson, as Vice President, writes of the “full and difficult, but
challenging” days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, 11-12-1962, unframed
Stephen D. Lee
Superb autograph letter signed in which the Confederate general
poignantly recalls the death of a Union soldier and the bloody
battlefields of the Civil War, 12-2-1897, unframed
William H. Seward
Historically superb letter by which Seward, as Secretary of State, sends
vital certified copies of documents
for use as exhibits in the trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators,
6-13-1865, unframed
Frank Lloyd Wright
Autograph letter signed on a postcard, signed
with both Wright’s full signature and his initials, to the manager of the Arizona
Biltmore resort in Phoenix, circa 1951-1952, unframed
———————————
Recent
Additions
Susan B. Anthony -
sentiment and signature by the women’s suffragist and rights activist, 2-15-1903, unframed
Clara Barton - bold signature of the founder of the American Red
Cross on a small card, dated in her hand 3-29-1903, unframed
Henry Ward Beecher - partial autograph letter signed seeking
executive clemency for a convict, unframed
Alexander Graham Bell -
poignant letter by Bell seeking assistance
for his cousin’s grandchildren after their parents’ deaths, 4-18-1922, unframed
Stephen G. Breyer - near fine copy of
Justice Breyer’s book Active Liberty: Interpreting our Democratic
Constitution, boldly signed
James Buchanan - very fine free frank clipped from an envelope,
unframed
George H. W. Bush -
ever the politician, the father takes the opportunity to promote the
presidential candidacy of his son, George W. Bush, 12-6-1999, unframed
George H. W. Bush - the former President cleverly sends his
autograph on his personal bookplate, incorporating the title of his book,
All the Best, unframed
Tom C. Clark - typed letter signed,
with three-line holograph postscript, identifying possible Washington, D.C., leaders
for the American Judicature Society’s annual membership
drive,4-17-1968, unframed
Grover Cleveland -
autograph letter signed, saying that he is “quite willing that my autograph should be found in such illustrious company,” 12-11-1899, unframed
Oliver Ellsworth and Lt. David Smith - Connecticut pay
warrant with excellent Revolutionary War content referring to service at
Peekskill, New York, and signed by both Ellsworth and the soldier, 8-5-1777,
unframed
Oliver Ellsworth - outstanding association autograph document
signed, a warrant to pay a seven-year veteran Connecticut soldier who served
in several important campaigns, including the Siege of Yorktown, 5-18-1778,
unframed
Oliver Ellsworth - Revolutionary War-dated Connecticut pay warrant
authorizing payment to a doctor for treating a sick soldier, 5-16-1777,
unframed
Gerald R. Ford -
White House letter in which the embattled President thanks the incoming
Republican Party treasurer for taking on the task during the upcoming
political season, 9-12-1975, unframed
J. Edgar
Hoover - Hoover responds to a
student, sending a signed photograph and suggesting
“an
article of mine . . .
entitled ‘The Enemy’s Masterpiece of Espionage,’”
1-12-1955, unframed
Howell
E. Jackson - extremely rare
handwritten letter—one of only three we have found—in which the
Supreme Court Justice, as Senator from Tennessee, sending his
regrets for his inability to obtain a job appointment for a friend’s son, 12-7-1885, unframed
Andrew Johnson - album page signed and dated by Johnson ten days
after he left the White House, 3-14-1869, unframed
William Preston Johnston - autograph letter signed by the
Confederate colonel, son of General Albert Sydney Johnston and the first
president of Tulane University, 12-23-1897, unframed
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow -
nice sentiment and signature by the most popular American
poet of his time, unframed
Thurgood Marshall - typed letter signed declining to discuss the
inner workings of the Supreme Court and to sign a copy his first Supreme
Court opinion, 2-6-1986, unframed
Brian Mulroney - beautiful inscribed, signed formal portrait of
the conservative Canadian Prime Minister, unframed
Frank Murphy -
nice bust portrait of Murphy, taken as
Associate Justice, inscribed and signed to noted manuscript collector King
V. Hostick, unframed
Chester W. Nimitz -
autograph letter signed by the American Fleet
Admiral mentioning “those busy days at Pearl Harbor” during World War II, 1-13-1952, unframed
Richard M. Nixon - signed photo of President Nixon at the height
of his power, delivering his acceptance speech at the 1972 Republican
National Convention
Richard M. Nixon - typed letter
signed, with handwritten emendation, mentioning the first Gulf War and the
1991 economic recession, 1-28-91, unframed
Robert E. Peary - typed letter signed by the polar explorer
sending congratulations and thanks to a colleague, 12-7-1906, unframed
Franklin D.
Roosevelt -
the President-Elect,
anxious to talk with famed social work leader John Adams
Kingsbury, complains that
“every minute of my time is taken until I leave for the South,”
1-7-1933, unframed
Theodore Roosevelt -
typed letter signed to famed New York social
worker John Adams Kingsbury thanking him for a book, 7-12-1911, unframed
Theodore Roosevelt -
typed letter signed to famed New York social
worker John Adams Kingsbury suggesting another luncheon with social workers,
12-21-1911, unframed
Daniel E. Sickles -
beautiful handwritten letter by Sickles, as the American Minister to
Spain, to famed New York socialite Anne Lynch Botta, 4-14-1871, unframed
Harry S. Truman - formal portrait of
Truman, later used for the 8¢ memorial stamp, inscribed and signed to a
man Truman met in a cafe in Independence, Missouri, 5-18-1965, unframed
United States
Supreme Court - photo of the Burger Court, circa 1972–1975,
boldly signed by all nine Justices, unframed
Fred M. Vinson - personal check, signed
as Chief Justice, to pay his wife’s department store account, 3-15-1950,
unframed
George
C. Wallace - extra fine condition 8” x 10” color
photograph of Wallace, inscribed and signed as Governor of Alabama, unframed
———————————
Featured Collections
The Justice Tom C. Clark Collection
We are privileged to offer
the personal autograph collection of Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark.
Justice Clark served as Attorney General of the United States from 1945 to
1949, when President Harry S. Truman appointed him as an Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States. Shortly after he arrived at
the Court, Justice Clark began assembling a collection of autographs of
Supreme Court Justices that included those of his colleagues and extended
back into the 19th Century. The collection includes personal letters that
Justice Clark received from other Justices, including those congratulating
him on his appointment to the Court, and internal Supreme Court memoranda
among the Justices—material that is extremely rare on the autograph market.
None of this material has ever been offered for sale before.
click
here to see the items that we are currently
offering from the collection. They include a congratulatory
handwritten letter from Justice
Stanley F. Reed, two typed letters by Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson (1-4-1950
and
1-27-1950), extremely rare handwritten internal Court memoranda
from Justice
Harold Burton to Justice Clark and between
Justices Clark and Reed regarding cases, internal handwritten
notes from Chief Justice
Charles Evans Hughes and Justice
James C. McReynolds, an official Supreme Court document signed
by Justice
Willis Van
Devanter, and signatures of Justices
Joseph R.
Lamar,
McReynolds, and
Mahlon
Pitney.
Autographs From the Estate of Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr.,
The United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Under Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
This outstanding Cold
War collection of letters and documents had never before been offered
for sale on the autograph market until we offered it. It contained
letters from five American Presidents—Harry S. Truman, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon—as
well as First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Eisenhower, and Jacqueline
Kennedy and others such as Robert F. Kennedy, Hubert H. Humphrey, Dean
Rusk, and even Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin.
Thompson was one of the
greatest and most important American diplomats of the 20th Century.
He was the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union at the height of
the Cold War, under Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. A man with
velvet gloves but a backbone of steel, he played a critical role in
dangerous times. His advice to Kennedy as a member of the ExComm
during the Cuban Missile Crisis was largely responsible for avoiding
nuclear war with the Soviet Union. He was also with Johnson at his
1967 summit with Kosygin at Glassboro, New Jersey, and advised Nixon on
and represented the United States in the negotiations over the SALT I
treaty.
click here to see the remaining
items from this special collection.
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Here you will find
History In Ink—beautifully
framed and unframed letters, documents, and signed photographs as well as
signed books and other autograph items. You
will also find
much more: Our listings include biographical information and often
explain the historical context of the autograph item itself. We also
offer information on caring for historical autographs and
links to several interesting and helpful web sites.
History In Ink®
offers a wide variety of historical autograph material, both framed and
unframed, for sale in a broad range of prices. We give you personal
service to help you find just the right piece to help build your collection
or give the perfect gift to a history buff.
If we do not have it in stock, we are always glad to help you find it.
We specialize in the autographs of United States presidents and first
ladies, Supreme Court justices, European royalty, and World War II military. We also have
items from many other notable persons in American and world history. Those
include statesmen and world leaders; presidential cabinet officers; members of Congress; military figures from the
American Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I,
and other conflicts; artists; authors; inventors; scientists; aviators and astronauts; and personalities from
law, business, politics, vintage entertainment, and occasionally vintage sports.
We take care to make our framed displays some of
the best—wonderful conversation pieces for the home or
office. They include one or more photographs or portraits and usually
include one or more engraved plates identifying the person and, if
appropriate, the event. Most of our unframed items can also be framed.
We also offer
several payment options to make it as easy as possible for you to build your
collection or give the perfect gift. We can ship both framed and
unframed items virtually anywhere in the world.
We always enjoy talking about
autographs, so please email us with your questions, comments, and
suggestions. Give us your wish list, and sign up for our email list so
that we can tell you about new items as we offer them.
Most of all, enjoy
our site, breathe in the history, and come back often. |