SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Treasured artifacts associated with President Abraham Lincoln were on the auction block Wednesday, separated from a collection that was intended to be available for public display forever but wound up in the middle of an interagency feud amid a lingering $8 million debt.
The blood-stained leather gloves that were in Lincoln’s pocket the night he was assassinated were among the 144 items up for bid, 136 of which sold. They were auctioned to pay off the remainder of a two-decade-old loan that the Lincoln Presidential Foundation used to buy a one-of-a-kind cluster of Lincoln artifacts from a California collector.
The auction at Freeman’s/Hindman in Chicago raised $7.9 million, but that includes buyers’ premiums of roughly 28% tacked onto each sale to cover the auction house’s administrative costs.
The gloves were the top-selling items, bringing in $1.52 million including the premium. One of two handkerchiefs Lincoln had with him April 14, 1865, the night he was shot, went for $826,000.
A “Wanted” poster featuring photos of three suspects in the assassination conspiracy, led by John Wilkes Booth, sold for $762,500, far higher than the top estimated price of $120,000.
And the earliest known sample of the 16th president’s handwriting, from a notebook in 1824, fetched $521,200.
Phone and email messages seeking comment were left for the foundation. Its website said proceeds from the auction would be put toward retiring the debt and “any excess funds will go toward our continued care and display of our extensive collection.”
The foundation purchased a 1,540-item assemblage in 2007 from Louise Taper for the fledgling Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which opened in 2005 in the city where he established a law practice and lived while serving in the Illinois Legislature and briefly in Congress.
The artifacts were supposed to give the library and museum, which was rich in Lincoln-related manuscripts, a boost in what it lacked — the meaty kind of curios that draw tourists.
But fundraising was slow, forcing the sale of non-Lincoln portions of the collection and threats by the foundation to sell more before it finally extended the loan.
In 2012 a controversy arose over what had been the crown jewel of the group — a stovepipe hat, appraised at $6 million, that Lincoln was said to have given as a gift to a southern Illinois supporter. That story came under intense scrutiny, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, resulting in a 2019 study that found there was no evidence the hat belonged to Lincoln. It was not part of Wednesday’s auction.