The discovery of this great collection made national headlines, including CNN, Time, the Times, and the Associated Press. You can listen to Steven Raab’s interview on KABC here:
Alexander Hamilton: The Dawn of the Nation’s Modern Financial System
Original Letters Documenting the Dawn of America’s Financial System
Scarce letters signed by Hamilton, never before offered for sale
PHILADELPHIA, PA – May 9, 2017 – The Raab Collection, the nation’s leading dealer in important historical documents, announced today that it is unveiling and offering for sale 10 newly discovered letters of Alexander Hamilton, all written as Secretary of the Treasury, documenting the birth of our nation’s financial system. The collection of historical documents, worth more than $150,000 has never been offered publicly for sale and contains correspondence not previously known to have survived. The letters have for generations been in a private family collection in New England.
“This is a remarkable find, an unprecedented archive of our nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury, documenting the founding of our nation’s financial history,” said Nathan Raab, principal at The Raab Collection.
Born in Saint Kitts and Nevis and raised in the West Indies, Hamilton arrived in the Americas as a student in 1773. Following the first rumblings of the Revolutionary War, Hamilton joined the New York militia in 1775; just two years later, he was General George Washington’s aide-de-camp. He was Washington’s choice as the First Secretary of the Treasury.
The original letters of Hamilton being sold span his term as President Washington’s Treasury Secretary, from his first year in office to late 1793 and are the largest and most important financial collection of Hamilton’s correspondence to reach the market in decades. They relate to the founding of the Treasury, the establishment of the Bank of the United States, and war in Europe. Among them is Hamilton’s 1793 letter urgently sending out the new nation’s rules on neutrality, as war erupted in Europe, as well his 1789 letter in which he ordered the implementation of the first public loan by the Government of the United States, which financed the first US Government operations. They are being sold individually, with prices ranging from $14,000 to $30,000.
About The Raab Collection: The Raab Collection has handled many of the most important historical documents to reach the market and worked with the families of famous Americans in the sale and preservation of their family treasures, among them Neil Armstrong, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, William Henry Harrison, and Ronald Reagan. Nathan Raab, a member of the Board of Directors of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is also a contributor to Forbes.com. To learn more visit www.raabcollection.com or follow @raabcollection on Twitter.
