The Kenneth W. Rendell Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting Donated to the Grolier Club
- by Announcement, Rare Book Hub staff
The Grolier Club Library is pleased to announce the receipt of a major gift, the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting, which is the most important and comprehensive collection on the subject known to exist anywhere. The Gift is from club members Kenneth W. Rendell and Shirley McNerney.
Rendell, a leading dealer in historical letters and documents, has exposed numerous famous forgeries such as the Hitler Diaries fraud, Mussolini’s diaries, the Mormon forgeries and murders [with forger Mark Hofmann], and Jack the Ripper’s forged diary. This collection was formed over a 60-year period and consists of thousands of forgeries, facsimiles of handwriting, reference books, and archival files concerning major cases in which Rendell has been involved.
The collection is wide-ranging, encompassing historical letters and manuscripts from the early 17th century to the modern day. Classic forgeries of Shakespeare, Robert Burns, Schiller, Washington, Lincoln, Franklin, Berlioz, Wagner, Poe and numerous others are included. Rendell made every effort over his long and distinguished career to acquire original examples of past forgers from many sources, including the files of dealers such as Charles Hamilton, Mary Benjamin and Goodspeeds.
The gathering together of so many “original” forgeries – often destroyed and notoriously difficult to collect – alongside genuine examples of handwriting and a specialized reference library, gives the collection unparalleled value for study. Thanks to the generosity of Rendell and McNerney, these materials will be made widely available to researchers, scholars, librarians, Grolier Club members, dealers, and the public for the first time.
The collection consists of:
10,000 facsimiles of the handwriting of prominent persons from the 17th to the 20th centuries
160 forgeries created to deceive, usually for profit
400 “authorized forgeries” intended to deceive people into thinking they are genuinely signed, usually by an authority figure (e.g., members of royalty, American presidents)
75 “mistaken identities,” in which two different people with the same name living in the same place and time are confused with each other (e.g., two people named John Adams”)
29 facsimiles frequently mistaken as genuine (Longfellow, Twain, etc.)
140 reference books on forgery detection
8 linear feet of archival files relating to major forgery cases in which Mr. Rendell was involved, including the Hitler diaries, the Mussolini diary, the Jack the Ripper diary, the Mormon forgeries, the John F. Kennedy/Cusak fraud, and the Elvis Presley musical manuscript forgeries
Research files and photographs compiled by Rendell for his book, Forging History: The Detection of Forged Historical Manuscripts (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994)
The gift of the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting also includes a monetary gift to enhance accessibility to the collection through professional cataloguing. Through their donation to the Grolier Club, Rendell and McNerney have ensured the preservation of this material is a publicly accessible institution, where it can be studied by anyone with an interest in the history, analysis, and detection of forged documents. We are grateful to them for their foresight and extraordinary generosity.
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Galileo Galilei. Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico, e copernicano. Firenze, 1632
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Saverio Manetti. Storia naturale degli uccelli. Firenze, 1771-76
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Fortunato Depero. Depero futurista. Rovereto, 1927
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Nicolas Visscher. Atlas minor sive totius orbis terrarum contracta delineat ex conatibus. Amsterdam, circa 1649-95
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Andreas Vesalius. Anatomia. Addita nunc. Antiquorum Anatome. Venezia, 1604
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Tristan Tzara and Salvador Dalì. Grains et Issues. Parigi, 1935
June 25, 2026
Doyle, June 25: Houdini's biography, boldly signed. $3,000 to $5,000.
Doyle, June 25: A volume from Abraham Lincoln's library, signed just before heading to Washington for his inauguration. $20,000 to $30,000.
Doyle, June 25: A very early Confederate recruiting manual belonging to the chief commissary in Lee's Army. $600 to $800.
Doyle, June 25: Rare hand-colored lithographs of the life of Napoleon. $20,000 to $30,000.
Doyle, June 25: The "Holster Atlas" of the American Revolution. $5,000 to $8,000.
Doyle, June 25: Jewish ceremonies in fine hand-colored engravings. $7,000 to $10,000.
Doyle, June 25: A very rare work on Turkish military costume. $1,000 to $1,500.
June 25, 2026
Doyle, June 25: The most important illustrated work on the Mexican-American War. $10,000 to $15,000.
Doyle, June 25: The finest illustrated book on Afghanistan. $10,000 to $15,000.
Doyle, June 25: Henry Justice Ford St. George rescues the Princess from the horrible Dragon. $2,000 to $3,000.
Doyle, June 25: A rare work of Prussian Army uniforms under Frederick William II, with exquisite hand-colored engravings. $800 to $1,200.
Doyle, June 25: Lenny Bruce typed letter signed to a Village bohemian during his obscenity trials, with a manuscript note and drawing. $300 to $500.
Doyle, June 25: Schiff's scarce Shanghai Sketchbook. $300 to $500.
Doyle, June 25: The first accurate published representation of the American flag. $2,000 to $4,000.
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 123. Celebrate 250 Years of Independence with Original Stars and Stripes (1790) Est. $1,400 - $1,700
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 20. Keulen's Spectacular Chart of the World Featuring California as an Island (1728) Est. $12,000 - $15,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 42. Schedel's Ancient World Map with Fantastic Humanoid Creatures (1493) Est. $14,000 - $17,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 591. Matching Set of 3 Stunning Globe Gores of Eastern Asia from Coronelli's 3.5 Foot Globe (1688) Est. $5,500 - $7,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 9. Speed's Popular World Map with Allegorical Representations of the Elements (1651) Est. $14,000 - $17,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 168. First Separate Map of Kansas & Nebraska Territories (1854) Est. $5,500 - $7,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 43. Only Macrobius Map with Britain Attached to Europe (1515) Est. $800 - $950
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 250. Rare Map of Boston and One of the Earliest Maps of the Revolutionary War (1775) Est. $2,000 - $2,300
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 79. Schenk's Uncommon Map Featuring Two Figurative Title Cartouches (1696) Est. $1,200 - $1,500
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 681. Hand-Colored Image of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (1502) Est. $800 - $950
Sotheby's Book Week 2 June - 9 July
Sotheby’s, June 25: Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations, on its 250th anniversary. $180,000 to $250,000.
Sotheby’s, June 17: Fontana, Lucio. Concetto Spaziale. 1967. Leporello en papier doré. Bel exemplaire signé. €4,000 to $€,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”. $150,000 to $200,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: Washington, George (as First President). Washington decries “an ostentatious imitation, or mimickry of Royalty” in his Presidency. $250,000 to $500,000.
Sotheby’s, June 17: Lope de Vega. Rare manuscrit autographe signé de la préface dédicatoire de "El Cardenal de Belen" (le cardinal de Bethléem), pièce composée en 1610. €40,000 to €60,000.
