Abraham Lincoln Autographs

Historical listings are written in a shorthand that conceals most of the value difference between two items that look alike. It takes a minute to learn. An autograph letter signed is written out in his own hand throughout and then signed; a letter signed has a body written by someone else and a genuine signature; a document signed is a commission, an appointment or an order, usually formulaic in content. The hierarchy runs in that order, and the gaps between the rungs are large.

The second thing to know is that he signed two ways, and the choice was not random. In ordinary use — letters, endorsements, franks, most of his life — he wrote "A. Lincoln". On formal documents of state, commissions and appointments among them, the full "Abraham Lincoln" appears. A signature in the wrong register for the document it sits on is a question worth asking.

Military appointments and commissions

The classic collectible presidential Lincoln. Large, handsome, war-dated, and countersigned by his Secretary of War. Formulaic in content, which caps the ceiling, but unambiguous in what it is.

Endorsements on petitions

A line or two in his own hand on the reverse of somebody's request, directing what should be done about it. Small, plain, entirely his, and one of the most affordable ways to own real Lincoln handwriting.

Illinois legal papers

From the law practice, before the presidency. Frequently drafted in his hand as the attorney. Undervalued relative to presidential paper and often far more interesting.

Free franks

A signature used in place of postage during his term in Congress. Short, legitimate, and one of the cheaper routes into the hand.

Cheques

Dated and bank-processed, with the usual advantages: a fixed date, a consistent hand and an independent record that the transaction happened.

Signed photographs

Rare to the point that most collectors will never be offered one. Price and desirability accordingly, and expect the examination to be correspondingly serious.

No historical signer is adding to supply. Material only moves when a collection breaks up or an estate sells, which is why this market can look thin for years and then briefly flood when one great holding is dispersed.

Within that fixed supply, scarcity concentrates in what the paper says. Lincoln signed a great many routine documents and comparatively few pieces that say anything. One sentence about the war, about a pardon, about slavery or about a named individual is the difference between a common item and a piece institutions will compete for.

Historical collecting draws an older, more subject-driven buyer than entertainment does, and frequently one building a set — every president, every signer of a particular document, every officer of a campaign. Libraries and institutions compete for the best content pieces, which is why an exceptional letter sells into a far deeper pool than the signature alone would suggest.

Demand is steadier than in entertainment and slower to spike. Anniversaries, major biographies and landmark exhibitions produce most of the movement, and none of them create new supply.

Lincoln has been forged continuously since the nineteenth century, which creates a problem unique to the oldest names: some of the forgeries are now genuinely antique. Paper, ink and wear that would eliminate a modern fake are all present, because the fake was made a hundred years ago by somebody good at it. The best known of those forgers worked for decades in the twentieth century using period paper and a practised hand, and examples still surface in the market.

• Secretarial signatures on land grants and routine administrative paper — genuine period documents, the wrong hand.
• Printed facsimiles produced for anniversaries and commemorations, later separated from their context and sold as originals.
• Period paper carrying a signature added later, which passes every material test because the paper is real.
• Traced signatures copied from published examples: too regular, too slow, no natural variation in speed or pressure.
• Cut signatures with no document attached, stripped of the one thing that would otherwise support them.

Content

The single biggest factor, by a distance. What the document says outranks nearly everything else on this list.

Format

A letter in his own hand over a letter merely signed, a letter over a routine document, a document over a clipped signature.

Date

Signed in office and during the war rather than before or after. A war date is itself a form of content.

Association

Who it was written to, and whether that person matters in their own right.

Condition

Folds and toning are normal on paper this old and are not deductions. Tape repairs, trimming, mould and ink burn are.

Inscriptions barely arise in this category — nobody asked Lincoln to dedicate a photograph to them. Where a piece does carry a personal address, it functions as association rather than as an inscription, and it usually adds.