Good morning collectors. It’s Saturday, May 16. Abe Lincoln meets his killer at auction. A Hobbit goes for a record price, and we also have an enormous diamond. Sign up for free here.
Breaking News
Greetings from a killer: “Yours truly J Wilkes Booth”
Signed pictures of President Lincoln, his killer and his killer’s killer at auction
Signed portraits of Abraham Lincoln, his murderer John Wilkes Booth, and the soldier who shot Booth dead were sold at the same sale last week.
Swann Galleries, New York sold a family collection of 126 signed portraits of notable personalities of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Lincoln portrait, from 1863, realised $139,200.
John Wilkes Booth (photographed in Boston in 1862 for a carte de visite) was worth $107,950.
The sale also included a signed photograph of Boston Corbett, the man who fatally shot John Wilkes Booth. That sold for $3,302.
Lincoln is an established favourite with collectors and well known for bringing in high prices. The Booth photograph though went for 10 times its $10,000 estimate.
Another Lincoln photograph sold for $101,600. The next most valuable image (of Kit Carson) sold for $35,560.
In the Know
Selling this week
Zulu Dawn medal: Noonans Mayfair are selling a medal awarded to J J Horne, a trumpeter who was wounded at, but survived, the British army’s disastrous 1879 defeat at Isandlwana during the Zulu war. The medal is tipped to make £5,000-£7,000 on May 20.
Presidential watch: Away from more established watch sales, Heritage Auctions have a 2015 Rolex President in 18 karat rose gold (Ref. 118205) currently at $17,500 before auction close on Monday.
Sold last week
The Hobbit record: JRR Tolkien’s original (and in the view of this author, superior) Middle-earth work is among the most sought-after first editions with book collectors. George Allen & Unwin produced just 1,500 first impressions. One of them sold at Heritage Auctions this week for $450,000, from the collection of bibliophile David Aronovitz, setting a new auction record for the book.
Diamonds: The “Ocean Dream,” the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond in existence, auctioned for $17.3 million at Christie’s Geneva on Wednesday. Discovered in central Africa in the 1990s, it comfortably surpassed its $13 million high estimate, evidence of the importance high-end gemstone buyers place on record-breaking size.
Events & Exhibitions
Luxury: Closing on Thursday at the Rockefeller Centre in New York, Christie’s are showing highlights of their Luxury Week sales that include watches, jewels and jewellery, wines and spirits, handbags and more.
Pop culture and collectors: Next weekend is MCM London Comic Con at the Excel centre. Among signing guests are actors from Star Wars, Resident Evil and Doctor Who.
The Long Read
These stamps are highly rare. But you could still unearth one, if you search hard and have a bit of luck. Here are:
15 rare stamps worth thousands to look for in 2026.
Whatnots
Top 10 current bullion coins
Mints around the world produce 1 ounce gold coins. They have bullion value, and a select few will become collector’s rarities in time.
Here are 10 current issues:
- American Buffalo – USA. Introduced in 2006 with a collector’s version proof coin also available based on a 1913 design.
- American Gold Eagle – USA. Struck since 1986.
- Australian Kangaroo – Australia. Sometimes called the Nugget, they have been struck in Perth since 1986 and feature a new design each year.
- Britannia Gold Coin – UK. Struck in gold since 1987 (and subsequently also in silver and platinum). An unchanging design of Britannia backed with the monarch’s head has a £100 face value.
- Maple Leaf – Canada. Minted since 1979, with a $50 face value, recent design changes have introduced new security measures.
- Gold Panda – People’s Republic of China. Produced by the People’s Bank of China, with new designs each year, some of which are sought after for particular aesthetic appeal.
- Krugerrand – South Africa. Issued since 1967 and dominant in world gold markets until the Apartheid boycotts of the 1980s. Still produced and still legal tender in South Africa.
- Vienna Philharmonic – Austria. Minted since 1989 in a demand-limited issue with an unchanging but annually dated design.
- Jerusalem of Gold – Israel. Launched in 2010 and minted in limited runs that make them attractive for collectors. The designs show landmarks in Jerusalem.
- Noah’s Ark Gold – Armenia. Issued as a very limited edition proof coin in 2017 and then as a series from 2020. Shows the mountain with a claim to be the landing spot of the biblical Ark.
Quirky: Richard F Outcault may or may not be the first comic book author/illustrator in the world. The marrying of images and text and even sequential narrative panels has a long history that crosses many civilisations. Outcault was working in the bustling New York of the late 19th century when his stories of the city’s slums, and hero The Yellow Kid, became a huge publishing success, giving us the pejorative Yellow Journalism for the sensational papers that ran them. When he added speech bubbles and his stories were published in collected volumes Outcault staked a strong claim to pioneering a new form of storytelling.
Anniversary this week: On May 20, 1927 Charles Lindbergh set off from New York towards Paris for the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic. His plane, the Spirit of St Louis, became a locus for collectors as soon as he successfully landed and Lindbergh’s subsequent, eventful, tragic and controversial life in the public spotlight makes him one of the 20th century’s biggest celebrities. His autograph alone is usually worth thousands of dollars, with good quality memorabilia from his flights going for prices many multiples higher.
“Kids used to save whole scrapbooks on me. They get tired of them and mail them to me. I’ll go in there and read them, and you know what? They might as well be about Musial and DiMaggio, it’s like reading about somebody else.”
Mickey Mantle, baseball player
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