This Month in Collecting History - February 2016
By Mike McLeod

February 1, 1901: Frankly, Scarlett, it’s my birthday. Clark Gable earned $120,000 while working 71 days filming Gone With The Wind. Vivien Leigh earned $25,000 for working 125 days—about $427,000 in today’s money.1 Michael Jackson bought David O. Selznick’s Academy Award for Best Picture for Gone With The Wind for $1.54 million in 1999.2


February 3, 1936: The first Baseball Hall of Famers were announced: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner.

Also on this day, Norman Rockwell was born in 1894 in New York City. In 2013, his Saying Grace sold for a record $46 million at Sotheby’s. 

Clark Gable


February 4, 1902: Charles Lindbergh was born to fly in Detroit, Michigan. One of five letters of introductionhe carried on his solo flight to Paris on May 20-21, 1927sold for $135,000. Lindbergh carried no parachute with him on the flight, figuring there was no need if he went down.3 He lived until 1974.

Rosa Parks was also born on this day in Tuskegee, Ala. In 2005, her personal effects (including her Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal) were sold by Guernsey’s for $4.5 million, according to USA Today.


February 5, 1934: Hank Aaron, born in Mobile, Ala., practiced hitting homeruns early on by hitting bottle caps with a broomstick. A Hank Aaron game-worn jersey from 1969 was sold for $49,918 in 2014 by Lelands.com.


February 6, 1895: Funny that Babe Ruth’s birthday follows Hank Aaron’s. Something else funny—when the Babe tried to trademark his own candy, Ruth’s Home Run, after the phenomenal success of the Baby Ruth candy bar (which was named after him), the Curtiss Candy Company filed suit in 1926 saying he was infringing on their copyright of the Ruth name. The company said they named the candy after Pres. Grover Cleveland’s daughter Ruth, even though she’d died 22 years earlier. The court believed the yarn, putting the Babe out of business4. Now, Ruth’s Home Run candy is a rare collectible. Legendary Auctions sold a wrapper in 2010 for $600.


February 7: Authors Charles Dickens (1812) and Laura Ingles Wilder (1867) share this birthday. An autographed first edition of Oliver Twist sold for $229,000 in 2008.5

Laura Ingles Wilder’s eight Little House on the Prairie books and 17 other works made her famous. A Laura Ingles Wilder handwritten, autographed letter to a fan was sold by Bonhams in 2014 for $1,375.


February 8: Born this day were: James Dean in Marion, Indiana, (1931); Jules Verne in Nantes, France (1828); and Lana Turner in Wallace, Idaho (1921). Paul Fraser’s Autograph Index 2015 lists James Dean’s signature as the most valuable autograph by an individualat $27,000 (paulfrasercollectibles.com).

In November 2015, Swann Galleries sold a first edition Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon for $22,500. A later edition (published in 1918) sold in 2013 by Heritage Auctions for $7,500—it was signed by 11 Apollo astronauts including: Walt Cunningham (Apollo 7), Frank Borman (Apollo 8), Gene Cernan (Apollo X–XVII) and Buzz Aldrin (Apollo XI).

Lana Turner’s gown from Honky Tonk (1941) was sold by Julien’s Auctions for $2,812 in 2014.

 


February 11, 1847: Thomas Edison was born and made it possible for GE, the company he founded, to use the slogan, “We bring good things to light.” A classic, but after 23 years, it was replaced in 2003 with “Imagination at Work.” Edison is credited with more than 1,000 patents and a dozen inventions that changed the world.


February 12, 1809: Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. In January 2015, the 302-lot Dow Collection of Lincoln memorabilia (photographs, letters, diaries, Booth’s arrest warrant, a funeral admittance card, etc.) was sold for $803,889by Heritage Auctions.

Charles Darwin was born on the same day. Unsigned first editions of his 1859 On The Origin of the Species sold for £103,000 at Christie’s in 2009 and £26,000 at Lyon & Turnbull in 2015. 


February 15: Birthdays of Galileo Galilei (1564) in Pisa, Italy, and Susan B. Anthony (1820) in Adams, Massachusetts. Galileo’s 1610 Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger) describing his observations by telescope of craters on the moon, four moons of Jupiter and stars unseen until then was sold for $662,500 in 2012 by Christie’s.

For being a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, Susan B. Anthony was honored with her likeness on a dollar coin. Heritage Auctions lists it worth as only face value.


February 17, 1963: Michael Jordan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2014, he made more money from sports shoes ($100 million) than he made in his entire 15 years of contracts in the NBA ($94 million).6

On this day in 1909, Apache Chief Geronimo died at 79 while incarceratedat Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In 2007, Bonhams & Butterfields auctioned a Springfield rifle belonging to Geronimo for $100,000.


February 18, 1987: Maria von Trapp passed away in Vermont.Maria and the von Trapps went to Italy (not Switzerland) by train and not by walking over a mountain. Also,before they left, they actually told people their plans of going to America to sing.7

Photo Right: Von Trapp Family Singers, 1941. Maria is 3rd from the left.


February 19, 1878: Thomas Edison patented the phonograph. Edison phonographs from the early 1900s can be found for $200-$300 or so.


February 20, 1902:The birthday of Ansel Adams. His Hernandez, New Mexico (1948) sold for $609,600 in 2006, but it is 27th on the list of top-selling photos in the world. The top honor goes to Andreas Gursky’s “Rhein II” (1999), a photo of a river with green fields on either side, which sold for $4.3 million.8


February 21, 1994: CIA agent Aldrich Ames was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union for six years, resulting in the deaths of many people. In 2015, 170+ letters Aldrich Ames wrote from prison while serving a life sentence were sold for $9,000 by Lion Heart Autographs.


February 22, 1732: George Washingtonwas born.Paul Fraser of PaulFraserCollectibles.com says it’s a myth that his signature is rare, but it is “incredibly desirable,” which is why a signed letter in 2012 sold for $362,500.


February 24, 1685: Hallelujah! George Frideric Handel was born. The great composer was also an art collector, amassing at least 70 pieces—that were mostly auctioned off after his death—no heirs.


February 25, 1841: The birth of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Limoges. As a young man, Renoir worked in a porcelain factory since he was born in Limoges, France. He also drew designs for porcelain there.9

February 25, 1836: Samuel Colt received a patent for a pistol with a revolving cylinder. Colt was not the first to create this mechanism. An 1836 Colt revolver, cased with equipment, sold in 2011 for $977,500 by Greg Martin Auctions/Heritage Auction.


February 26, 1802: The author of Les Miserables Victor Hugo was born. In 2012, a collection of his family’s books, his artwork, photos and so on sold for $4.3 million.

 


February 26, 1846: "Buffalo Bill" Cody was born in Scott County, Indiana. His Civil War-issue Remington New Model Army .44 percussion revolver was sold for $239,000 in 2012 by Heritage Auction.

Also this day, the“Communist Manifesto” pamphlet was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A shabby 1848 copy sold in 1986 for $39,811.


February 27: Three notables born this day were: Elizabeth Taylor(1932) in England to American parents; John Steinbeck (1902) in Salinas, Kansas; and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807) in Portland, Maine.

In 2011, the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor—1,778 lots of jewelry, fashion, art and film memorabilia—sold for $156.7 million at Christie’s. The top item was the 16th century La Peregrina pearl (equal to 50+ carats) at $11.8 million.

Author of about 30 books, an auction of John Steinbeck’s letters, manuscripts, photos, etc. hammered for just over $70,000 in 2010 at Bloomsbury Auctions.

The most popular poet of his day, two pages of Longfellow’s working manuscript translation of Dante's Infernosold for $10,455 at Skinners in 2015. 

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All photos in public domain, PD-US.

1IMDB.com
2 Los Angeles Times, “Oscar becomes an auction figure” by Bob Pool, February 25, 2012
3 CharlesLindbergh.com, “The Passion of Collecting Charles Lindbergh Ephemera and History,” by Barry Friedman, National Ephemera Society Magazine, 2002.
4 History.com, “Babe Ruth v. Baby Ruth” by Christopher Klein, September 25, 2014.
5 Bloomberg News, “Oliver Twist sold for $229,000,” articles.latimes.com, April 3, 2008.
6 CBSSports.com, “Michael Jordan earned more in 2014 from sneakers than in playing career,” by Matt Moore, September 14, 2015.
7 Prologue Magazine, “Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the von Trapp Family,” by Joan Gearin, Winter 2005, Vol. 37, No. 4, Archives.gov.
8 SlrLounge.com, “World’s 27 Most Expensive Photographs Ever Sold.”
9 Jean Renoir, Renoir, My Father, pages 57–67.
 

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