Some Fascinating Looks at History from Stuart Lutz
Edison items on cover of Stuart Lutz's catalogue.
By Michael Stillman
Stuart Lutz Historic Documents offers a wide and fascinating collection of autographs and signed documents. Included are both the famous and near famous, along with some interesting letters from ordinary people concerning historic events. Just reading the descriptions in this latest catalogue is an entertaining and informative way to spend some time. If you find something you would like to own, that's better still, because the vast majority of these items are affordably priced. The following are a few samples of the items to be found within the pages of this Lutz catalogue.
There are several Thomas Edison items offered (see the pictures on the catalogue's front cover). Item 39 is an application Edison made and signed for a Canadian patent in 1888. This patent was for an improvement in the process of "duplicating phonograms." Of course, phonographic recording was one of Edison's most notable inventions, one that was still in its infancy at the time. Shortly thereafter, Edison would develop cylinders which could play up to two minutes of music. This signed patent letter is priced at $7,500.
Item 40 is the signed photograph of Edison seen on the catalogue's cover. It is a large photo (15 1/2" x 18 1/2") and is inscribed to one J.G. Monahan. $1,500.
Item 41 is a ten-year lease dated August 1, 1843, for 32 acres of land in Milan County, Ohio, granted to Samuel Edison. Samuel Edison was Thomas' father, who bought land and built a home in Milan in 1841. The leased property was probably used for business. Thomas was born in the Milan home is 1847. $1,500.
Thomas Edison devised some of the most important advances on earth, but contemporaries Wilbur and Orville Wright did their inventing in the skies. It was in December of 1903 that they made their flight into history from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In early 1909, the Wright brothers and their sister Katharine got together to spend part of the winter in France. It was during this time that item 151, a photograph of Orville and Katharine in a field with some cows, was taken. They look more like rural farmers than pioneering aviators. The picture is signed by all three Wright brothers and sisters. $12,500.
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
Dominic Winter, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500
Dominic Winter, May 14: Pierpont Morgan Collection. Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, 1904 & 1906. £2,000-3,000
Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.
Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26:Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26:PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
![<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/dc0b1dc0-f7c8-40b6-a5a6-870689484c07.jpg "<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Roberts (Henry, after). <i>Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ...,</i> [1784]. £500-800](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/033cf239-2b91-4588-aca2-50ad0a9c43b3.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Roberts (Henry, after). <i>Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ...,</i> [1784]. £500-800")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> World. Ortelius (Abraham), <i>Typus Orbis Terrarum,</i> [1598]. £2,000-3,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/3ecbc3d4-52ef-41c5-8a8d-d4a158a51253.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> World. Ortelius (Abraham), <i>Typus Orbis Terrarum,</i> [1598]. £2,000-3,000")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New...,</i> 1613]. £2,000-3,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/fcfb0b9a-4f59-4dc8-87fd-1dfdf90611dc.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New...,</i> 1613]. £2,000-3,000")
