Well, we have a grocery list signed by President Polk for thirty dollars. If you're interested, it's.
One more thing. Oh boy, that's funny.
Yeah, there's some auctions about to go on later in June for some unbelievable Lincoln related memorabilia for many millions of dollars.
We have spirow Arew's dry cleaning ticket.
You have any interest in that? No initial d tip amount. You see the S and the A. Yeah, so rare copies of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment are going to be auctioned off in Softab's upcoming books and manuscripscripts sale in New York City.
How many times I've been in these stores. They're usually in Vegas, one of your froncy casinos or where they sell memorabilia, whether it's sports, memorabilian music, or you know, politics or whatever, and they have a really it's usually a cool picture and a really fancy frame, and then what you're paying for is the little signature on something, a letter or whatever. But I've come close to buying
them many times. If I never had, I never have, mostly because I don't have the slightest idea if the price.
Is raised more not well, they almost caught me once or twice. Two authorities believe alcohol was involved, but they didn't. And and it's usually for the same reason. I end up thinking, all right, what would I do with this?
Who would I show it?
To?
Stick it under your pillow, sleep with your head on it every night?
Well? And how much you know, like after a year, how much joy would it bring me to have?
Or is it just an investment? I wouldn't do it. I would I never looked at it as an investment. It's always the coolness of it. But right right, how would it continue to be cool if I had? Okay, I got a signed copy of the Gettysburg address by Abrad Lincoln. That's a good one that I would get. Would I enjoy looking at that every day, hanging on my well forever? Or at some point is the phone worn off? I don't know. My friends and.
Acquaintances are history freaks enough that that would be really cool. But then, because I try not to be the slave to my more base urges, I find myself thinking, okay, so I'd be getting it to make myself look cool, And is that really a healthy use of time money and you know that's a good one. I'm not sure, and so I always end up in the same place. Although I will tell you so.
Much an extent with some stuff, it's just one degree removed from just showing somebody your bank statement. Is that much money I have in my account? I mean, because the point is this was expensive and I haven't Yeah, well yeah, partly, Yeah, you're not wrong. I've mentioned several times that the one thing I've lusted after for years and have really gone back and worth on spending the money for is a first edition of Dickens A Christmas Carol.
And because they're available and they're not so prohibitively expensive as to be insane, it's not like buying a copy of would you say the Gettysburg Address would be. But my my beloved daughter Delaney, when she was in England, she went to the Dickens Museum and got me a reproduction of the first edition of A Christmas Carol with all the original art and stuff like that was absolutely
lovely gift and very cool. When I read A Christmas Carol this Christmas time, as I do every single year, I will be reading it from that edition, which I'm excited about. But anyway, so you've got rare copies of both the CHRISTI right, So is that is that the one where.
The writing the fucking title.
Yes, that's the one where the burglars break into the house and the kids parents had gone on vacation.
Yes, that is exactly. And they said the kid sets up various booby traps. And I've never actually read to the end, but yeah, that's my understanding of it.
Sorry, too funny not to go along with.
So anyway, you got the the EP and the thirteenth Amendment on sale in June twenty six. The eighteen sixty three Probably Proclamation, was originally signed by Lincoln, issued during the Civil War, declared all enslaved people in Confederate States would be free. The copy, which was signed a year later, is estimating to sell for at least three million dollars.
The handwritten Amendment he signed on vellum in eighteen sixty five, ending slavery nationwide, is expected to sell for at least eight million dollars price that would triple its auction record, and the two single sheet papers represent the price priciest examples of each document to enter the marketplace and should serve as a major test of collectors' appetites for historic American artifacts, and they actually get into the market for
this sort of thing, which I found pretty interesting. The overall art market is in a slump, but this category has enjoyed an influx of gen X and millennial bidders ever since. A copy of the Constitution sold a billionaire Ken Griffin for forty three point two million dollars in twenty twenty one. Griffin famously outbit a consortium of cryptocurrency investors to win it.
I have no idea how many original copies of the Constitution there are. Are there six or sixty, Probably closer to six than sixty because you had to handle the hold.
They were originally like thirty two. Assume if these numbers are wrong, and they're far fewer left.
Now Katie, there are only thirteen known surviving original copies.
Okay, good, Yeah.
So aficionados are also getting more enthusiastic as we approach our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. But Lincoln is super super hot within the pantheon of historic signatures. Demand has fallen off in the past decade for President Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee, for instance, and remained steady for George Washington and Ben Franklin. Something from doctor Franklin would be very very cool.
Yeah, you can't be a guy who's got to sign Robert a lease something hanging on your wall anymore.
Well, not north of Kentucky anyway. Lincoln has proved to be the most coveted name in the American rare documents arena.
Lincoln Reign Supreme.
Said this authority from Sothabes. The record so far for any Lincoln related document is a three point eight million dollar copy of the Emancipation Proclamation sold to an anonymous guy in twenty ten. That, oh man, it stood out in part because it also belonged to Robert F. Kennedy Senior, who bought it in early nineteen sixty four for ninety five hundred bucks when he was Attorney General. Oh wow, now three point eight million.
Don't you have a guitar pick from somebody famous or something? Keith Richards Keith Richards guitar pack.
Yeah. I also have Jimmy Page's cigarette, but which I actually grabbed off the front of the stage.
And where do you keep these artifacts? They're in your pocket right now?
This pocket well, right, they're in a little box in my music room in my house.
How often do you show them to people? This gets to our earlier discussion. How often do you open them up? And look at him? Look at that guitar pick. I'll be damned, it's this opener.
I think I've shown the guitar pick once or twice the guitar players in the I forgot I had the Jimmy Page cigarette button until we just talked about it now. So it's been twenty years since I've shown it to anybody.
Okay, so you're not getting that much enjoyment out of it.
I'm really not. Of course, Let's keep in mind what I paid for both of them, nothing and nothing true. Uh so interesting. Well, here's some more interesting stuff. The upcoming version of the proclamation has a storied history of its own. This copy. Lincoln was already embroiled in the Civil War when he signed the original freeing enslaved People on jan one, eighteen sixty three. Great quote from Lincoln at the time quote, I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do
in signing this paper. Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seword later carved up and mortally wounded by the assassin team that killed Lincoln later signed an additional forty eight folio broadsides that were sold for ten dollars apiece to raise funds for the US Sanitary Commission, a private release relief agency that helped wounded Union soldiers in their families. So they signed forty eight more of them and sold
them for ten bucks apiece. Lincoln's original handwritten, written manuscript of the proclamation was lost in the eighteen seventy one Chicago fire. Oh wow, so the printed copies have become very, very coveted. Only twenty seven are known to survive. Eighteen to witch are now tucked away in institutions, and nine are on the loose. They're privately owned and occasionally come up for sale.
If you're really famous, so many of your things could be something that they could be documented. I'm surprised that. I mean, everything Lincoln had or touched it could be worth quite a bit of money. His socks, his pants, his hat, Yeah, his chair is just everything.
Well and famously, back in the day, people would write letters to Lincoln or Washington or whomever and ask for a lock of their hair, and they would and they would accommodate people. If they wrote a nice letter, they would send them a lock of their hair. It was really common, and so once in a great while you'll see what is allegedly Lincoln's hair come up procus. I remember I was talking about that a few years ago that I really wanted to buy some Lincoln's.
Hair, Oh, Jeeth, And what would you like? Taped it to your head and warning around.
Or showing it to friends together with Jimmy Page's cigarette, but both of which would have to be DNA tested for authenticity. Although I'm telling you I saw Jimmy smoke the thing, throw down the cigarette butts, and I just grab one.
Yeah, the provenance in all of these things is difficult. Although that means word it came from actually and being able to document it.
Yeah.
But if but if you believe it it's true, right, doesn't even make any difference.
Yeah, it's funny. I get all hot to trot thinking about this stuff, like something really cool from Ben Franklin. Then I always come back to where we started this discussion. All right, what would I do with it? You know what? It's partly an expression of my admiration and love for Abraham Lincoln, for instance, I would do that. But then okay, then, but what good does it do me unless I tell people, and then it's a showing off thing. I don't know. I'm conflicted. I'm very conflicted.
I would wear Lincoln socks every day if I had them.
I don't think they're probably in wearing shape at this point. I remember they sold square of the bloody pillow case, right, if I remember correctly. At one point.
There was some info about that. I was just at Ford's Theater not that long ago, all right, with my kids, and there was some info in there. Actually the house across the street, which I don't think i'd ever been in before, the house across the street where he actually died.
Yeah, it was. It's Katie. It is a very small room. It's like under the level of the street. What do you call that with like there's a skylighting window, as I recall, But it was very dismal and small and terrible and just kind of adds to the feeling of what a miserable waste assassination of Lincoln was.
Wow. Well, and the weird stuff on that thing like that, you know, a murder like a week later, it's pretty weird and disgusting to be in the room where somebody was killed or died. But you wait long enough and it's you know, everybody's just chattering and taking pictures and talking.
Yeah. Yeah, has there been I'm sure there have been multiple great books written about the amount of human suffering that was caused by the assassination of Lincoln because he couldn't oversee the early days of reconstruction established his policies.
Yeah, I would read that while I was wearing Lincoln socks. That's what I would do if I had them.
You know, is there John Wilkes Booth memorabilia. No, you can get probably not.
That wouldn't be cool.
I would pee on it every day or something, some expression of hatred.
That's how I that would be normal.
Pe on it. I'd tape on Lincoln's air onto my head and take my vengeance every day.
You can get Lincoln air for me, can't No, John Wilkes Booth, you can get his hair. Really, what's I go for?
Uh?
Thirty one thousand dollars and his wanted poster is also going for twenty three thousand dollars.
They must be able to They must have a really good way to authenticate that hair for it to go for that much money.
Yeah, the poster for twenty three kut put in a bid for me.
You're considering it, I'm gonna buy.
Then I'll pay it back. Don'try. I'm good, okay, all right, cool front me what it?
Just still pay it anytime. If you come up short, you'll sell off your cigarette button. Right. Well, I guess that's it.