Page 81 - The Hunt - Winter 2023/24

In an age of texts and emails, personal letters on paper from today’s famous people will perhaps become even rarer than those written when pen and ink were common.
vendors often deal in books and documents. “We do have this one program from the 1997 NBA championship signed by all the players,” says Rauch. “It’s priced at $495, so perhaps one of your readers will be interested.”
Parmer notes that the market for autographs is still “very wild.” “I get emails daily from dealers, as part of my job is searching for new materials,” she says.
Signature collections are especially valuable. Claiming to be the largest specialist auctioneer of works on paper in the world, Swann Auction Galleries in New York
has a specialized autographs department.
A collection of documents from the personal files of Hollywood icon Marlene Dietrich
included letters from Ernest Hemingway. One sold through Swann for $18,750 in May 2017.
As with anything else that’s collectable, proper storage is crucial to maintaining a collection of paper documents. Parmer advises to “keep it high and dry,” with as
little fluctuation in humidity as possible.
A paper folder is preferable, as plastic can be damaging. “Keep track of where you got it and what the story behind it is. Keep all your financial records,” she says. “If it’s valuable, put it on homeowners insurance.”
Of course, many of us also keep signed letters, notes and documents that are of no monetary value, often framing them for our
offices, bathrooms or entryways. A document my wife framed is now hanging in my office. It’s one I received not long after we were married, a time when we were poor graduate students and I was desperately looking for my first real job. A telegram with a printed signature, it’s one of most important signed messages I’ve ever received. It reads:
“Offer position instructor mass communications for academic year beginning September 1967. Please wire reply G Homer Durham President Arizona State University.”
Perhaps my enthusiastic reply even lies somewhere among President Durham’s papers housed somewhere in an ASU library in Tempe, Arizona. TH
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