Printed & Manuscript Americana

The Americana department specializes in unique manuscripts and scarce printed historical material on paper from the fifteenth century to the present. Inclusive of North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, sales consist of books and manuscripts, as well as broadsides, pamphlets, ephemera, historical prints and photographs. Areas of focus include the American Revolution, the Civil War, early American imprints, the West, Mormonism, diaries, American Judaica and colonial Latin America. A specialized annual auction of Printed & Manuscript African Americana augments these offerings, though the general sales are also rich in Black history.

Single-owner sales and special collections have included The Holzer Collection of Lincolniana, Revolutionary Americana from the Allyn Kellogg Ford Collection and the Latin Americana Library of Dr. W. Michael Mathes.

The department holds the record sale price for a first edition of The Book of Mormon at $185,000 in 2024, breaking our own record from 2007. Other highlights include a previously unknown 1693 edition of the Bay Psalm Book that reached $221,000; an extensive archive of personal and family papers of Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, realized $281,000, and a 1778 collection of original ink and watercolor drawings depicting the Battles of Lexington and Concord sold for $100,000.