Source : Laurence Witten Rare Books
| Source Title | |
| Description | Laurence Claiborne Witten was an American bookseller who specialized in European works. A graduate of Yale, he opened up shop nearby in New Haven in the 1950s. He later moved to Southport Connecticut, continuing deeply in the business until 1983, when he suffered a heart attack. His cataloging came to an end after that, though he remained partly in business until the early 1990s, and lived until 1995. Witten left many of his manuscripts to the Beinecke Library at Yale, and his major stringed instrument musical collection was sold to the University of South Dakota National Music Museum in 1984 for $3 million. Perhaps the most famous incident of Witten's career came when he brought back from Europe the so-called Vinland map. This supposedly circa 1440 map showed a land mass east of Greenland called "Vinland," with a notation that it had been visited by Europeans in the 11th century. This map would have predated Columbus by half a century, and completely revised most thinking about who and when America was "discovered." While widely accepted when information was first released in 1965, later testing of the ink and comparisons with other contemporary maps have led most to conclude it is a forgery. |
| Scope of Text | |
| Total Records in AED | 1645 |
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Freeman’s, August 20. President Washington Reaffirms the US Treaty of Friendship and Peace with Morocco, the Longest Unbroken Treaty in US History. $50,000 – 80,000.Freeman’s, August 20. Weeks After Victory at Yorktown, Benjamin Franklin Promises Repayment of a French Loan that Funded the American Revolution. $200,000 – 300,000.Freeman’s, August 20. Rare First Edition of the Foundational Text of the Mormon Church. $100,000 – 150,000.Freeman’s, August 20. President Washington Sends the First Major Law Passed by Congress, the Tariff Act of 1789. $100,000 – 150,000.Freeman’s, August 20. A Scarce Example of Audubon's Depiction of a Brown Pelican, Plate CCLI from his Birds of America. $30,000 – 50,000.Freeman’s, August 20. The Official and First Obtainable Broadside Printing of the Lincoln's Final Emancipation Proclamation. $30,000 – 50,000.