Signed in Gold

It took only three minutes to sell lot No. 216 at Manhattan's Swann Galleries last week. The item, bound in two gilt-tooled morocco volumes, was bought at auction by a Philadelphia lawyer for $120,000. The price made history. The item was history: autographs of all 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Autographs (or holographs), as distinct from mere signatures, are by definition documents in the author's handwriting -- preferably signed by him. Their value depends on rarity, content --usually their historic significance -- and the writer's eminence. With inflation and the uncertain stock market, many buyers have turned to autographs and other tangible investments like diamonds, antiques and rare books, thus driving up prices. "In the past five to seven years, business has more than doubled, even tripled," says Doris Harris, a Los Angeles autograph dealer. Reports Sara Willen, another Los Angeles dealer: "Good manuscripts on the average go up 10% to 25% a year." But there is a more enduring reason than their investment potential. Says New York's Charles Hamilton, a leading figure in the autograph market: "There is this excitement about owning a permanent relic of a great man which is not only written by him but contains his thoughts and words -- the human part. Autographs are the only self-proving and authentic mementos of great men and women."

Among presidential autographs, those most in demand are by Lincoln, Washington and John F. Kennedy. Almost any signed Lincoln document is worth at least $2,000; Abe's reply to a girl who had urged him to grow whiskers -- "Do you not think people would call it a silly affection [sic] if I were to begin now?"_sold for $20,000. A 1785 letter from Washington in which he refused "pecuniary reward" for his services to the young country fetched $37,000 in 1973, an alltime record for a presidential letter. The highest price ever bid for a letter may be $51,000, the sum paid in 1927 for a routine communication by Button Gwinnett, one of the obscurest signers of the Declaration, whose rare autograph helped fuel the bidding at last week's auction.

Authentic signatures of President Kennedy are rare because he had at least 14 secretaries signing his letters; thousands more were dispatched by "autopen," a robot writer that can realistically reproduce a signature. A memorable excerpt from J.F.K.'s inaugural address ("Ask not what your country can do for you . . ."), handwritten and signed by the President on White House stationery, sold for $11,000 in 1971, the highest price paid for a document signed by any U.S. President since Lincoln.

Says Mary Benjamin, a noted autograph scholar and dealer: "The field is governed in great part by emotion, the feelings that collectors have toward the individuals who have written."Nonetheless, villains too have autograph appeal. Papers signed by John Wilkes Booth sell for around $1,000, ten times as much as writings by his gifted brother Edwin Booth. Benedict Arnold's three-page will sold for $2,800. Two known letters from Jesse James are worth between $5,000 and $10,000. Documents of Nazi leaders command high prices. Producer David Wolper, a collector of note, has a Christmas card that was sent by Al Capone to, of all people, George Bernard Shaw. Its message: "May our rackets live forever." Among other curiosa, Dealer Hamilton has a 1969 letter from Patty Hearst valued by the seller at $1,000.

Autographs of great writers are perennially in demand. A moving letter from Dickens deploring public hangings is for sale in London at $525. Only half a dozen authentic Shakespeare signatures survive--all in museums. "If someone came up with another Shakespeare," says Swann Galleries' Owner George Lowry, "it would be worth as much as a Jesus Christ."

While Christ may in fact never have signed his name--maybe he used a cross --a daring 19th century French forger sold spurious signatures of Mary Magdalene, Pontius Pilate and Lazarus (after his resurrection). Some of the great forgeries have acquired genuine value, notably a play purported to be by Shakespeare that was "discovered" by 18year-old William Henry Ireland in 1795 and was actually produced in London by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (the first-night audience howled it down).

While historic documents continue to be found occasionally in attics or old trunks, the supply of valuable autographs is drying up. In the age of the telephone, few people write personal letters. Even great men have their papers typed and signed by autopen. This is a distressing prospect for historians as well as dealers. The time may come when autograph collectors are reduced to bidding on presidential tapes, expletives deleted.

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