Abraham Lincoln
Signed until 1865, so the supply is fixed — nothing new is being added to this market.
Recorded sales
| Date | What sold | Certified | Price | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-12-15 | Signed carte de visite by Alexander Gardner taken 24 February 1861 with John Hay's authentication on the back | PSA/DNA and Beckett Auto Mint 9 | $181,250 | auction result |
| 2022-02-12 | Signed carte de visite by Mathew Brady taken 8 January 1864 | PSA | $81,250 | auction result |
| 2006-02-20 | Circa 1843 legal document signed Rountree and Lincoln p.d. | PSA/DNA | $3,884 | auction result |
By certification level
These are 3 results this index has recorded from Heritage Auctions between 2006 and 2023, not every sale that happened. They under-represent inexpensive items, which sell constantly and are reported rarely, and they exclude private sales this index has no record of. Read them as documented evidence rather than as a complete market.
About this signature
- Status
- Signed until 1865supply is fixed
- Note
- The finest Lincoln material sells on provenance, not on a modern certificate
- On this index
- 0 listedno sales recorded yet
What does a signed Abraham Lincoln item cost?
The three certified results recorded here run from just under four thousand dollars, for a legal document from his years as a practising lawyer in Illinois, to over one hundred and eighty thousand for a signed photograph. He died in April 1865, and the material that survives is mostly paper: letters, official documents, legal papers from his law practice, and signed carte de visite photographs, the small mounted portraits that were collected and exchanged in the 1860s.
Why does this page show so few results?
Because this index records only sales with a certificate from an independent authenticator, and Lincoln's market mostly does not work that way. Of nine Heritage and Goldin results researched for this page, six had no such certificate. They included a signed portrait authenticated on its back by John Hay, Lincoln's own private secretary, and an 1836 letter to his first fiancee, Mary Owens, consigned by one of her descendants. At this level buyers rely on provenance and on the auction house's manuscript specialists, and a chain of ownership back to Lincoln's own office can carry more weight than a modern certificate. We leave those sales off rather than treat them differently from every other signer here.
Why did one signed photograph sell for more than twice another?
The dearer one is a carte de visite taken by Alexander Gardner on 24 February 1861, the day after Lincoln arrived in Washington for his first inauguration, and it carries John Hay's authentication on the back. It made $181,250. A signed carte de visite taken by Mathew Brady in January 1864 made $81,250. Two things separate them, and they cannot be pulled apart: the earlier photograph comes from the eve of his presidency, and it carries the endorsement of the man who handled his correspondence. Both are the kind of detail that moves a price at this level far more than the grade of the signature, as it did on George Washington's page.
Signatures are reproduced more often than most buyers realise, by outright forgery and also by machines and assistants signing on somebody’s behalf. Every item on this page has been examined by PSA/DNA, JSA, Beckett, SGC or CGC, and this index carries nothing else. That is a deliberate restriction, and the investigation that created the modern authentication industry is worth reading, along with what a certificate actually claims.