Chats on autographs

William Upcott, the conscript father of modern autograph-collecting, was born in 1770, and lived until 1845. He was the natural son of the painter Ozias Humphry, the maiden-name...

The autographs of Royalty have, for more than a century, formed a favourite subject for collection, not only in the United Kingdom, but on the Continent and in the United States...

By a felicitous coincidence two literary autographs of more than ordinary interest have come to light at the moment I was preparing to write the present chapter. The first is th...

"How very inconsiderate some of our great people have been in the matter of epistolary correspondence! If Thomas Lynch, jun., and Button Gwinnett, and John Morton had only under...

=Autograph collecting in relation to kindred hobbies--The genesis of the autograph--Examples of the _alba amicorum_ of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--The conscript fat...

"Letters of affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them," writes Lord Bacon, "are, of all others, the best instructors for history, and to a diligent reader, the best...

The modern autograph collector has certain advantages over his predecessors of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which will compensate him in some measure for the di...

Oui, il y a de faux autographes, comme il y a de faux antiques. Mais est-ce-qu'on devra supprimer le musée des antiques parce qu'on a découvert de faux bronzes.--ÉTIENNE CHARAVA...

If autograph collecting is, as Mr. Joline defines it, "one of the gentlest of emotions," it certainly gives its votaries occasional moments of harmless excitement. Many of my re...

"I cannot write well because my mind is engaged on two subjects at once; one, my ideas; the other, my handwriting. The ideas go on fastest, and then goodbye to the letters and t...

On December 17, 1907, four-and-twenty letters of Ludwig van Beethoven were sold at Sotheby's for £660, notwithstanding the fact that the autographs of musicians, artists, and ac...

There are some autograph collectors who limit their sphere of operations to the writings of great sailors and soldiers. The subject has already been touched on incidentally unde...

Cost. Sale Price. Lot No. $ $ 1 Addison 20.00 42.00 30 Jane Austen 20.00 60.00 42 Beecher (H. W.) 2.00 21.00 45 Blackmore 2.50 8.50 47 Blake (Wm.) 15.00 55.00 44 " " 1.00 8.50 5...

Autograph collecting in relation to kindred hobbies--The genesis of the autograph--Examples of the _alba amicorum_ of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--The conscript fath...