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FILE – This June 14, 2007 archive photo shows, Abraham Lincoln's blood-stained gloves that he wore the night of his death at the library Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Historians say that the acquisition in 2007 of 1,500 documents and artifacts for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum firmly established Illinois as the primary repository of all Lincoln's activities. So, forgive the hand on the possibility that some of them should be sold. The Lincoln Museum fundraising foundation, which borrowed $ 23 million in 2007 to buy the private collector Louise Taper's magnet, still owes $ 9.2 million on a note due in October 2019. (Photo AP / Seth Perlman File)
SPRINGFIELD, IL – The acquisition of 1,500 documents and artefacts for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum ten years ago firmly established Illinois as one of the Lincoln's main custodians, the grassland lawyer who led the United States Civil War.
So, forgive the hand on the possibility that some of them should be sold. The Lincoln Museum fundraising foundation, which borrowed $ 23 million in 2007 to purchase the offering to private collector Louise Taper, still owes $ 9.2 million on a note due in October 2019. Donations have slowed down and state officials are reluctant to contribute.
The Associated Press in the collection shows large pieces that could be considered expendable. Does a Lincolniana collection need five dozen posters, letters and lithographs belonging to Junius Brutus Booth, the father of Lincoln's murderer, John Wilkes Booth, who died eight years before Lincoln does not become president?
Does he need an invitation from 1874 to the wedding of President Ulysses Grant's daughter? A memo from 1928 to the wife of the legal partner of Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln? A 1948 limited edition copy of "John Brown's Body", Stephen Vincent Benet's poem?
Maybe not. But selling them would hardly reduce the debt of the Springfield Museum. A copy of Benet's folk epic about the Civil War drawn from the same print costs less than $ 100 online. A New York dealer sold a Junius Booth theater ticket for 1851 several years ago for $ 400.
"You can not take nine of these coins and get 9 million," said Brian Kathenes, a New Jersey appraiser. "You will probably have to take care of the best products or sell a lot more."
In the jargon of Christmas, the deplorable situation of the museum reminds Kathenes "The gift of the Magi", the O. Henry's little story of an impoverished couple trying to buy gifts: "You sell your reason for being."
The Museum Code of Ethics prohibits the sale of collectibles only to additional purchases.
Yet the founding Lincoln Museum says that such a sale might be necessary. A basic statement released last week indicates that negotiations and fundraising, including a GoFundMe page, are continuing as documents are drafted for a potential debt reduction "without the transfer of essential elements".
Harold Holzer, award-winning and prolific Lincoln scholar, stated that museums regularly sell duplicate objects or "second-class objects" acquired in addition to treasured treasures.
"But do not pay the rent," said Holzer, "because the temptation is too great to defend the place in order to pay for the walls." The walls were built to protect the material. Is not there to protect the walls. "
The Taper collection is bursting with riches: examples of Lincoln's earliest known writings, his presidential seal, teeming with wax remnants of his latest use; a Schuyler County court record dating back to 1839, which contains Lincoln's signatures for the plaintiff and his longtime rival, Stephen A. Douglas, for the defense; the glove soaked with blood that he had in his pocket the night of his assassination
The authenticity of some other objects, such as a stovepipe hat, was in doubt. At a hearing at Illinois House last month, Wheaton Republican representative Jeanne Ives said retailer Seth Kaller of White Plains, New York, had asked in 2007 to validate the award. agreed purchase, also questioned the provenance of a fan of Mary Lincoln and a The clock apparently comes from the Lincoln law firm in Springfield
A list from the collection provided to the PA has 701 entries with at least 1,200 separate articles. While 561 items are associated with the Lincoln name – from the president's grandfather, Colonel Abraham Lincoln in 1778, to his daughter-in-law, Mary Harlan Lincoln in 1942 – 265 items are related to the Booths, of which only 52 are associated. with the man who killed Lincoln in 1865.
Still, Kathenes wonders what a researcher might find among apparently innocuous objects.
"Everything you delete cripples the institution exponentially," added Holzer. "It just makes things worse, not better – even if you are collecting money, your reputation is so marked that I do not think it would ever find it again."
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Lincolniana's Taper Collection: https: // www .documentcloud.org/documents/ 5642261-Lincoln-Artifacts.html
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Follow political editor John O. Connor at Address https://twitter.com/apoconnor.
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