Taper Collection of Lincoln Artifacts Raises Nearly $8 Million at Auction

Lincoln's bloody gloves from night of assassinationA major auction of Abraham Lincoln artifacts held May 21, 2025, brought in nearly $8 million dollars. The largest amount for any single item was over $1.5 million (including auction fees) for a pair of blood-stained gloves that Lincoln wore the night of the assassination.

Hindman ran the auction for the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, whose predecessor organization had purchased the Taper Collection of Lincolniana. Approximately 10 percent of that collection was included in the auction designed to raise money to pay off the ongoing debt from the initial purchase many years ago.

In addition to the gloves, other items from the night of the assassination also exceeded their estimated pre-auction value. Lincoln’s handkerchief sold for $826,000, more than double its initial estimate. A monogrammed cuff button that had been on one of Lincoln’s sleeves when he was assassinated went for $445,000, while a ticket stub from that night’s performance of Our American Cousin garnered $381,200.

Other items included a partial sheet from Lincoln’s “sum book” with mathematical calculations and a poem, which sold for $521,200, and the first printing of Lincoln’s second inaugural address – estimated to be worth between $40,000 and $60,000 – sold for $165,000.

One intrigue in the sale was that an anonymous bidder known as “Paddle 1231” was by far the largest buyer, purchasing about $4 million worth of the $8 million total, including the gloves, handkerchief, and other high-ticket items. Some have speculated about whether that buyer could be Illinois Governor and First Lady JB and MK Pritzker, who have a history of purchasing Lincoln artifacts at auction and have donated them to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in the past. Neither the governor’s office nor the Lincoln Presidential Foundation would comment on the matter, which is pure speculation at this point.

Controversy surrounded some of the items in the collection, most notably the provenance of the stovepipe hat that had been on display in the Museum. Considerable upheaval in the Museum and Library staff has occurred in recent years and the Museum severed ties with the predecessor foundation, leading to its reorganization into the current Lincoln Presidential Foundation.

The remaining 90 percent of the Taper Collection continues to be held by the Foundation while the old debt is retired and new locations for display are investigated. While no one seems to be happy that some items were auctioned off, there are hopes that many of them will be donated or loaned to an appropriate museum for public display. Perhaps the mysterious “Paddle 1231” will ensure that happens?

You can see all the items and their sale prices at the Freeman/Hindman’s site here.

[Photo credit: From Freeman/Hindman’s auction site]

Fire of Genius

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Abraham Lincoln, Zachary Taylor, and the Land Office Job He Didn’t Get

Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was not happy. He had worked hard to get Zachary Taylor elected as president as a Whig, and yet he was being passed over for the lucrative General Land Office job. Worse, he was being ignored, something the man who had been Whig leader in the Illinois legislature and recent representative to Congress. On May 16, 1849, he made his dissatisfaction with Taylor’s appointment of Justin Butterfield to the Land Office in Illinois.

Always a Whig in politics (to that point), Lincoln had used his time between sessions of his single term in the U.S. House of Representatives to stump for Zachary Taylor in Massachusetts. Taylor was a strange choice for the Whigs, who had generally disapproved of the Mexican War as a transparent attempt to enlarge the territory in which to expand slavery. But the Whigs felt he was the only candidate who could win (both major parties courted him) and that he would be pliable (he professed no firm political views), so they chose him over perennial candidate, Lincoln’s beau ideal of a statesman, Henry Clay. That wasn’t the only problem. As a Southern slaveowner, Taylor rankled the antislavery sensibilities of the liberal wing of the Whig party in Massachusetts, although the more conservative Whigs (e.g., textile mill owners who depended on the availability of Southern cotton) were less concerned. Disaffected Whigs had built a Free Soil movement to promote an antislavery candidate and Lincoln was sent to smooth over ruffled feathers in an attempt to keep party leaders in the Whig camp. Lincoln was well received and did seem to convince many Whigs, and although the central part of Massachusetts with its more stringent Free Soil passions voted for former president Martin Van Buren as the Free Soiler candidate, the full contingent of Massachusetts’s electoral votes went to Taylor. Taylor became president.

Lincoln continued to stump for Taylor once he returned home to Illinois. Which is why he was so rankled. After first suggesting others for the Land Office job, he switched to seeking the office for himself to ensure that a strong supporter of Taylor would get the prime position. He was ignored. Taylor (or more accurately, those in the administration making the appointment recommendations) had gotten it into their heads to appoint Justin Butterfield of Chicago. Lincoln was incensed. Writing to the Secretary of the Navy William B. Preston on this date, Lincoln argued that Butterfield had done nothing to get Taylor elected:

“[W]hen you and I were almost sweating blood to have Genl. Taylor nominated, this same man was ridiculing the idea . . . and when Gen: T. was nominated, if [Butterfield] went out of the city of Chicago to aid in his election, it is more than I ever heard, or believe. . . . If there is one man in this state who desires B’s appointment to any thing, I declare I have not heard of him.”

His pleading fell on deaf ears. Butterfield got the job, and Lincoln was out of political office for the next twelve years. He would build a steady legal practice, get aroused back into politics by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, fail in two senate races, and then – after another tour of New England in 1860 – get elected as the 16th President of the United States.

Those two tours of New England bracketed the most contentious and critical decades in our nation’s history. Lincoln was vastly different men from one tour to the next, as was the country.

Stay tuned!

[Photo credits: Public Domain]

Fire of Genius

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Chasing Lincoln Across Upstate New York

Grace and Abe statue, Westfield, NYAbraham Lincoln traveled through upstate New York in early 1861 on his way to Washington, DC for his inauguration, stopping in Westfield, Buffalo, Albany, Peekskill, and New York City. Twelve years before, in 1848, he stopped in Buffalo and saw Niagara Falls on his way home between sessions of congress after he toured around eastern Massachusetts giving speeches in support of Zachary Taylor as the Whig nominee for president [Spoiler: Taylor won] In late April of this year, traveled much the same route in northern New York on my way to the Lincoln Forum spring conference at Hildene in Manchester, Vermont.

My first stop was Westfield, where Lincoln first met Grace Bedell, the young girl who had earlier written to tell him he would get more votes if he grew a beard. Granted, he didn’t start growing it until after the election, but he had it when he stopped in Westfield on his inaugural train journey. When he arrived in Westfield for a brief refueling stop, he called out to see if she was present. She was, and they shared a big hug to a crowd of cheers. Today, a small park features life-sized bronze sculptures of Lincoln and Bedell along with tributes to soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Right beside the park is Grace & Abes, a brewpub where you can choose from a selection of “Abe’s Ales” or all seven deadly sins from “7 Sins Brewery” (and no, there is no beer named after Grace Bedell since she had not yet turned 12 years old at the time).

From there I was on to Buffalo, where among other attractions (and a side trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls), I checked out two statues of Lincoln. “The Boy Lincoln” by sculptor Bryant Baker depicts a young Lincoln seated on a log and holding a book. The other, simply titled “Lincoln,” was sculpted by Charles Henry Neihaus and depicts a sitting President Lincoln. It is located in front of the South side of the Buffalo History Museum. One trivia note – Niehaus at one time had eight statues of famous men in Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol, a record. Four have them have since been replaced, but the four that remain are still more than any other sculptor in the Hall.

In Rochester, I checked in on several sites related to Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. There are fourteen statues of Douglass in and around Rochester, including one of he and Anthony having tea. I visited the cemetery where both of them are buried. One of the Douglass statues has him and Lincoln standing full height grasping hands in a firm handshake between equals.

After checking out the Finger Lakes and Seneca Falls (where women began their struggle to get the vote), it was on to Auburn, the home of Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward. Touring the home was fascinating, as was the grand bust of Lincoln in the library, joined by a similar one of Seward. Auburn is also the adopted home of Harriet Tubman, so I checked out yet another cemetery for the tombs of Seward and Tubman.

 

After a quick stop in Syracuse to see two more Lincoln statues, it was on to Manchester, Vermont, where I attended a weekend Lincoln Forum conference at Hildene, Robert Lincoln’s summer home. I had been there before, but this was a great opportunity to do some fact checking for the book I’m writing on Lincoln’s two New England tours, plus see about 150 other Lincoln researchers.

I’m currently in the final stages of writing the book that will be released in February 2026, so stay tuned for more information on that in the coming months.

[Photo credits: All taken by David J. Kent, April 2025]

Fire of Genius

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.