Buy Fewer Things, and Make Them Great
I first got started in this field back in 1985. At that time, I was like a kid in a candy store, buying without...
Autograph authentication: Apply Your Common Sense
Did you ever write to a president about one of his policies and get a thank you letter back? Probably 50,000 Americans wrote a...
Authentication: Know how people signed their names
Is it possible that there is a letter signed by Lincoln with his full signature, Abraham Lincoln? He never signed letters anything but A....
Why Autographs Matter, and Why People Collect Them
The past defines the present, and history provides the window through which we view its incidents and personalities, determine its impact, and shape our...
Assessing Signed Photographs and Books
Many people collect signed photographs, and even here our concepts of content and intrinsic importance hold true. We always start with the perhaps surprising...
Authentication: Beware Confusions in Identities
How many John Adamses were there in America in 1790? Too many to count. Adams was an extremely common family name in 18th century...
Autograph Collecting in America – a Brief History
By late 1830’s, encouraged by the Jacksonian populist spirit that made important people seem more approachable, the idea of collecting autographs became widespread. And...
Assessing Autograph Values
Within each of the primary autograph formats (letters, manuscripts and documents), there are four identifiable price levels. Three of these track the gradations of...
Autograph authentication: Assess Dissimilarities and Idiosyncrasies in the Writing
Not a month goes by that someone doesn’t contact me saying they have an autograph and “know” it is authentic because the writing looks...
Treasures We Have Hunted
Now for some treasures that were partly hidden. By partly hidden, I mean that the item was in plain site but its nature or...