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University Archives: Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books

Auction Reports

Auction Name Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books Total Sales (USD) 714,845.45
Auction Date June 17, 2026 - June 17, 2026 Low Estimate of Lots Sold (USD) 478,230.00
Sale Number #61726 High Estimate of Lots Sold (USD) 653,250.00
Total Lots 393
Sold Lots 367.0 Low Estimate of All Lots (USD) 534,930.00
% of Lots Sold 93.38% High Estimate of All Lots (USD) 732,250.00
Unsold Lots 26 Total Sales as a % of High Est. 97.62%

Top twenty-five by sale price

Top Sale Price Lots
Lot Number Author Name Book Title Year Published Estimate Actual Price
368 Rand Ayn

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" Original Manuscript Page With Corrections, 80 Words in Her Hand!

1952 USD 40,000.00 - 50,000.00 USD 40,625.00
280 Lee Bruce

Bruce Lee 3pp Best ALS on Principles of Yin and Yang: "you need your opponent to complete the… whole"

ca. August 1964 USD 25,000.00 - 35,000.00 USD 37,500.00
221

"Titanic...Vessel Lost" Survivors Official Board of Trade Discharge Papers of Crew Mabel Martin, Who Escaped via "Unsinkable" Molly Brown's Lifeboat #6

1912 USD 5,000.00 - 7,500.00 USD 31,250.00
375 Tolkien J.R.R.

Tolkien ALS Refuting Allegory in His Trilogy: "To ask if the Orcs 'are' Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs"

1957 USD 30,000.00 - 40,000.00 USD 31,250.00
402 Watson J D; Crick F H C; Wilkins M H F; Stokes A R; Wilson H R; Franklin Rosalind E; Gosling R G

Execeptionally Scarce Offprint Announcing Crick & Watson's Double-Helix Model Signed by Crick, et al.

1953 USD 25,000.00 - 30,000.00 USD 25,000.00
59 Lincoln Abraham

Abraham Lincoln Among Earliest ALS's in Private Hands; He Details Bankruptcy Process Signed Into Law By Pres. Tyler Just 2 Weeks Before!

1842 USD 18,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD 22,500.00
251 Hamilton Alexander

A. Hamilton Re: Nicholson's Concerns Implementation of His Debt Assumption Policy. Related to Fed Papers, Formative Moment of Our Modern Financial System.

1791 USD 6,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD 20,000.00
320 Patton George S. Jr.

Gen. Patton to Mother of Fallen Solider: "…we should not…regret that such men have died, rather we should thank God [they] have lived", 75 Pcs.

1941-1945 USD 18,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD 18,750.00
60 Lincoln Abraham;Stanton Edwin

Lincoln War-Dated Appointment of Salem Zouave Captain, WIA at Antietam and Author of Famed Diary

1864 USD 6,500.00 - 9,000.00 USD 15,000.00
84 Booth John Wilkes

John Wilkes Booth Writes from New Orleans to Admirer During Civil War

1864 USD 15,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD 15,000.00
357 Kerouac Jack

Jack Kerouac Wants To Be on the Road Again "to come back to Denver someday in a Buick convertible with a case of scotch." Fantastic Literary Content

1947 USD 13,000.00 - 18,000.00 USD 15,000.00
377 Clemens Samuel L. 1835-1910

Mark Twain, Who Has Said, "The report of my death was an exaggeration." ALS on his Death & Cremation! Ex-Sotheby's, Ex-Christie's

1887 USD 3,500.00 - 5,500.00 USD 13,750.00
80 Irving Washington

Mary Lincoln Owned & Signed "Life of George Washington," From Lincoln Family Library, Dated 1860, During Presidential Campaign & Cooper Union Speech

ca. 1860 USD 5,000.00 - 6,000.00 USD 12,500.00
229 King Martin Luther Jr.

MLK on "need of Negro groups to come out with a strong cry of justice for the Indian"

1964 USD 10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD 11,875.00
254 Jay John

John Jay ALS Re: Col. Laurens, In SC to Raise a Regiment of Slaves to Fight Against the British, Memorialized in the Play "Hamilton"

1779 USD 10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD 11,875.00
378 Whitman Walt 1819-1892

Walt Whitman Lengthy ALS: "my book business, + a little writing" Re: 1876 "Leaves of Grass" Orders Plus Fellow Poet Joaquin Miller!

1876 USD 4,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD 11,250.00
313 Grant U.S.

U.S. Grant ALS: Final Push of the Civil War, 16 Days Before Surrender

1865 USD 5,000.00 - 7,000.00 USD 10,625.00
49 Stoughton Cecil William

JFK & LBJ Photo Signed by Both During the Last Months Before Kennedy was Assassinated

1963 USD 8,000.00 - 12,000.00 USD 10,000.00
61 Lincoln Abraham

Abraham Lincoln Wins Legal Case Representing Farm Owner! 140 Words in Lincoln's Hand!

1850 USD 3,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD 10,000.00
83 Booth John Wilkes

John Wilkes Booth’s Owned & Annotated Scenery List for His Most Iconic Role, Shakespeare's Richard III

1862 USD 3,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD 8,750.00
276 Hughes Howard R

Howard Hughes Signed 1958 Contract, PSA/DNA - In Archive Re: $7 Million Loan; RKO Flops "The Conqueror" & "Jet Pilot"

1956-1959 USD 3,000.00 - 3,500.00 USD 8,125.00
406 Einstein Albert

A. Einstein SP to Japanese Steel Employee, Whose Downfall Later Came After Atomic Bomb- Fantastic Provenance!

1921 USD 8,000.00 - 12,000.00 USD 8,125.00
2 Adams John Quincy

JQ Adams Directs Gov. Clark to Release Smuggled Slaves "to be removed and sent to Africa, and liberated comfortably to the existing Law”

1820 USD 3,500.00 - 5,000.00 USD 7,040.00
102 Roosevelt Franklin Delano

Franklin D. Roosevelt & His Cabinet Signed Oversized Photo, Scarce & Superb!

1937 USD 3,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD 6,875.00
250 Hamilton Alexander

A. Hamilton ALS Tied to "Federalist Papers", Sinking Fund and in Preparation for His "Defence of the Funding System". Highly important!

1795 USD 7,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD 6,875.00
  • Sotheby’s Geek Week
    14-15 July
    Sotheby’s, July 14: Henry De La Beche. "Awful Changes," 1830. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 11]. Flight Plan, Complete Original Printing Signed by Buzz Aldrin. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Thomas Alva Edison. Documents Establishing and Ending the Edison Electric Railway Company. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Richard P. Feynman. Feynman's Lectures on Gravitation 1-16, Including the Original Transcriptions of Lectures 12-16 by Morinigo and Wagner, With Richard Feynman's Manuscript Notations, 1971. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 9]. A Group of Manuals and Mission Documents used by Stuart Roosa as a member of the Astronaut Support Crew. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: [BYTE: The Small Systems Journal]. A collection of early foundational issues of Byte: The Small Systems Journal, with rare hardcover editions. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Inundation papyrus. P.Michael 4, the ‘Inundation papyrus’, a geographical account of the Nile near Canopus, in Greek, remains of two columns from a manuscript scroll on papyrus, Egypt, second century CE. £12,000-18,000
    Forum, July 16: Book of Hours, use of Sarum, manuscript on vellum, 6 full-page miniatures, with famous Middle English inscriptions, Southern Netherlands for the English market, [c.1430]. £30,000-50,000
    Forum, July 16: Qu'ran, Arabic manuscript on burnished, stencilled, and gold-flecked paper, 447ff., Sultanate Gujarat, Ahmadabad, [after 1411 but no later than 1442]. £15,000-20,000
    Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Turner (William). A New boke of the natures and properties of all wines that are commonly vsed here in England, rare first edition of the first English book on wine, By William Seres, 1568. £20,000-£30,000
    Forum, July 16: Spenser (Edmund). The Faerie Queene. first edition, Printed [by John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. £30,000-40,000
    Forum, July 16: Shakespeare (William). The Comedie of Errors, extracted from the first folio, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. £15,000-20,000
    Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1953. £40,000-60,000
    Forum, July 16: d'Agoty (Jacques-Fabien Gautier). Anatomie de la Tête, first edition, Paris, chez le Sieur Gautier, 1748. £10,000-15,000
    Forum, July 16: Martial Arts.- Lee (Bruce). 'Praying Mantis style' Kung Fu book, containing numerous annotations, diagrams and graphs in Bruce Lee's hand, c. 1960. £50,000-70,000
    Forum Auctions
    The 10th Anniversary Sale
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    July 16, 2026
    Forum, July 16: Warre (Capt. Henry James). Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, rare hand-coloured issue, 1848. £30,000-40,000
    Forum, July 16: Norie (John William). The Marine Atlas, or Seaman's Complete Pilot for all the principal places in the known world..., 1826. £30,000-50,000
    Forum, July 16: Mao Tse-tung.- Kim Il-sung.-[Note book for visitors from China to Korea], signed by Mao and Kim, [Beijing, 1954]. £10,000-15,000