Lot 162: Audubon hand-colored engraving, ‘Great Blue Heron. Area herodius.’ Plate CCXI, 1834. Sold for $62,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.
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The sale opened with an impressive collection of eclectic literary offerings. This session featured a fine collection of Dickens’ first editions, including Great Expectations, which brought $3,750, and a rare first edition, first printing of William Faulkner’s first novel, The Marble Faun, which, being in its rare dust jacket, brought $18,750.
Another headlining item of the sale was an archive of letters and typescripts from the modernist critic and poet, Ezra Pound, to Saint Louis artist Ernest Trova from Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Pound was housed at the facility after being deemed unfit for trial for treason due to his fascist sympathies and broadcasts in Italy during World War II. With a presale estimate of $10,000-$15,000, the archive exceeded all expectations bringing $35,000.
Achieving an unexpectedly high price was a group of more than 150 early American lottery tickets culled by Patricia Lyons Simon Newman and her second husband, Ralph Newman, founder of Chicago’s Abraham Lincoln Bookshop. Newman recently received national attention due to a touching public farewell from her son, National Public Radio’s Scott Simon, who kept vigil by her bedside and tweeted to his 1.3 million followers reports of her final hours. The archive, spread across five lots by category (institutions, public works, Revolutionary War, etc.) brought a combined total of $19,125 against a low estimate of $4,200.
Presidential manuscript letters and documents also drew high prices, including a fine autographed George Washington letter from the collection of Lewis and Clark historian and former University of Illinois professor Donald Jackson, which sold for $7,500. Rare early American travel books housed in custom wooden boxes also drew strong prices.
The highest prices of the auction came from a session of rare Audubon prints, including a Whooping Crane, $25,000, and a Great Blue Heron, $62,500. Rounding out the top lots were Turgot’s mammoth bird’s-eye view plan of Paris, $12,500; Benner’s series of portraits of the Romanov family, Collection de vingt-quatre portraits de la famille imperiale, $7,500; and a fine incunable, Herolt’s Sermones discipuli de tempore, et de Sanctis, March 25, 1477, $4,000.
The sale closed with a session of coin and paper currency, including a series of rare 16th-century Papal gold coins and a 17th-century silver marriage medal. A collection of 45 1928 Series $100 Federal Reserve Notes sold for $6,250.
Click here to view the fully illustrated catalog for this sale, complete with prices realized.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Lot 162: Audubon hand-colored engraving, ‘Great Blue Heron. Area herodius.’ Plate CCXI, 1834. Sold for $62,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image. Lot 32: Ezra Pound letters to Ernest Tino Trova. Sold for $35,000. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image. Lot 50: group of 29 early American lottery tickets for universities, 1753-1814. Sold for $6,250. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image. Lot 143: [Plan de Turgot] Bretez, Louis. Plan de Paris. Paris, 1739. First edition of famed bird’s-eye view map, on 21 sheets. Sold for $12,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.
![Lot 143: [Plan de Turgot] Bretez, Louis. Plan de Paris. Paris, 1739. First edition of famed bird's-eye view map, on 21 sheets. Sold for $12,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.](https://www.liveauctioneers.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013_1119_hindman143.jpg "Lot 143: [Plan de Turgot] Bretez, Louis. Plan de Paris. Paris, 1739. First edition of famed bird's-eye view map, on 21 sheets. Sold for $12,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.")