This Month in Collecting History - December 2015
By Mike McLeod

December 5, 1791: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 35 in Vienna, Austria. Recently, a single-page note he wrote to a friend requesting the return of three scores of his music was sold for $217,000 by RR Auction of Boston. Mozart died penniless and buried in a pauper’s grave.

December 5, 1839: George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio. Care to guess how hold he was at the Little Bighorn?

While you think about it, Custer's battle flag sold for an incredible $2.2 million in 2010 by Sothebys. His Spencer carbine carved with "G.Custer - 7 Cav USA" offered by Heritage Auctions in 2012 went for $179,250.1

How old was George Armstrong Custer when he met his fate at the Little Bighorn in Montana? He was just 27 years old.

For an interesting article on why there really wasn’t a “Custer’s Last Stand,” see www.historynet.com/ten-myths-of-the-little-bighorn.htm.

December 5, 1901: The creator of Mickey Mouse was born in Chicago, Walt Disney. He dropped out of high school to fight in WWI but was too young. After the war, he joined the Red Cross and was an ambulance driver in France. After that, his brother Roy found him a job creating ads. A 1928 Mickey Mouse poster sold in 2012 by Heritage Auctions for $101,525.

Photo Right: 1928 Mickey Mouse one-sheet stock poster, 27 x 41 inches.
(Photo: Heritage Auctions, www.ha.com.)

December 9, 1992: Buckingham Palace announced the separation of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. In 2014, a slice of Prince Charles’ and Lady Diana’s wedding cake in a white and silver presentation box sold for $1,375. The 33-year-old (in 2014) piece of cake was not fit for a queen by then, or a princess, but the collectible box and card reading, “With best wishes from Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince & Princess of Wales,” were worth the royal sales price.

December 10, 1896: Alfred Nobel died in San Remo, Italy. A pacifist who ironically invented dynamite, Nobel left the equivalent of $265 million today to fund his namesake prize, and 526 Nobel Prizes have been awarded in the categories of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. Nobel spoke five languages fluently and held 355 patents.

In the past few years, the Nobel medals of James Watson and Francis Crick—the discoverers of DNA—sold for $4.7 million and $2.2 million, respectively, the highest ever paid for those medals.

December 14, 1799: George Washington died at Mount Vernon.

December 14, 1861: Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, died of typhoid at Windsor Castle. R.J. Reynolds’ Prince Albert Tobacco introduced in 1917 was not named after him. It was named after his son Edward VII, who was known as “Prince Albert.” Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom from 1901 until 1910 when he died.

December 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta. Clark Gable attended, as did Vivien Leigh and Margaret Mitchell. Gable did not win an Oscar for Best Actor for the film; that (somehow) went to Robert Donat for Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Gable did win a Best Actor Oscar for 1934’s It Happened One Night, and that Oscar was eventually sold for $607,000 to Steven Spielberg. He donated it to the Academy Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

According to ModernFirstEditions.net, a first edition Gone With the Wind with original dust jacket, all in fine condition (which are extremely rare), could sell for $100,000.

December 16, 1944: While flying to Paris from England to entertain troops, Glenn Miller’s small plane disappeared over the English Channel, probably due to mechanical failure in the icy conditions. He was never found, and the plane was not listed as missing for 72 hours because the Battle of the Bulge began the next morning.

December 16, 1770: Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany. Deaf by the age of 30, he wrote and conducted his Ninth Symphony two decades later. Its manuscript was sold by Sotheby’s for more than $2 million. A lock of his hair sold for £8,125 this year, also by Sotheby’s. (A lock of Mozart’s hair outshone Beethoven’s at £35,000.) Beethoven once said: “Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.”

Photo Right: Beethoven at age 13.
(Photo: RobertG; public domain CC BY SA.3)

December 17, 1775: Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born in Hampshire, England. Her writing desk can be seen in the British Library in London near handwritten lyrics by the Beatles. Which is better, Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility?

December 23, 1888: Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear because of his depression. It is a myth that he only sold one painting in his lifetime. Actually, he sold two…and some drawings. A self-portrait was sold in 1888 to Sulley and Lori, art dealers in London. The Red Vineyard is the painting usually credited as being his only sale.2

Photo Right: Vincent van Gogh

December 23, 1805: Joseph Smith, President and Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born in Sharon, Vermont. In 2007, a first edition Book of Mormon sold for $180,000 including 20% buyer’s premium.

December 25: Celebrating birthdays this day include: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England; Clara Barton (1821-1912) in Oxford, Mass., who founded the American Red Cross in 1881; and Humphrey (his real name) Bogart (1899-1957) in New York City. Newton’s 1687 first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was sold by Sotheby’s in London for $548,878.

December 27: On this day were born: astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) in Germany; Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) in France; Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) in Germany.

December 30, 1865: Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay, India. The author of The Jungle Book, he said, “A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.”