Civil war photo album makes top sale at PBA Galleries

A rare US civil war-era photo album has sold at PBA Galleries.

It achieved $33,000 in the April 7 Rare Americana sale in San Francisco.

Abraham Lincoln album
The album features 258 photographs of members of Congress during the civil war era

The book contains 258 photographs of Congress politicians between 1865 and 1870, including members of Lincoln's cabinet.

Many of the images were taken by Alexander Gardner and Matthew Brady, two pioneering figures in the history of photography.

Over 200 are also signed, by key figures such as attorney general James Speed (1864-1866) and postmaster general William Dennison Jr (1864-1866).

Gardner's iconic photo of Lincoln is included, albeit unsigned.

The auction house described it as "an exceptional photographic record of Lincoln and the Civil War documented in rare carte-de-visite portraits, signaling the power of 'heroic portrait in a bold new form.'"

We have these fragments of wallpaper from Lincoln's home in Springfield for sale.

A rare first edition copy of Mark Shaw's The John F Kennedys: A Family Album (1964) realised $14,000.

The lot is signed by Shaw, a photographer who enjoyed unprecedented access to the Kennedys, and is inscribed to FDR Jr - the son of Franklin D and Eleanor Roosevelt.

It was published shortly after JFK's assassination and resonated with the mood of the time.

You can check out all our books and manuscripts for sale here.

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