Illinois Campaign Memorabilia

Appraised on: July 26, 2003

Appraised in: Chicago, Illinois

Appraised by: C. Wesley Cowan

Category: Photographs

Episode Info: Chicago, Hour 3 (#802)

Originally Aired: January 12, 2004

IMAGE: 1 of 4  

Appraisal Video: (2:51)

GUEST: This is my husband's grandfather and he was in the state legislature for 12 years, and he was the chairman of the committee that welcomed President Taft in February of 1911. They were commemorating Lincoln's 102nd birthday the next day.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: And my son and I think this picture was taken in Decatur because they met the delegation there and escorted the president to Springfield.

APPRAISER: This photograph is a great photograph, and I think you pointed out that this is Israel Dudgeon here and that's Big Bill Taft-- William Howard Taft, the president. And you're right, it's taken by a photographer in Decatur, Illinois. His name was Charles L. Wasson. It doesn't say that on the picture, but that's who it was. He was a very fam... you know, locally famous guy. What I like about this is the sentiment that Taft autographed to your husband's great-grandfather about, you know, "It was great to be there that day." And there are other things that go along with that, and these don't really relate to Lincoln-- these relate to George Washington, right?

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: I mean, we've got an ax and we've got the cherries. These are centerpieces on the table, I think, that they probably would have had at the dinner. So it was a Washington/Lincoln day. Still do that today. You know, one of the things that I want to talk also about is this great group of ribbons. These are the kind of things you don't see anymore in political campaigns. These are relics of political campaigning, and you would wear these to pay attention to the candidate. You had questions about... you wanted to preserve this. The first thing you want to do with this is get this out of this acidic matte and have that reframed.

GUEST: Just... just this matte part here?

APPRAISER: Just the matte and the backing of it. The backing needs to be replaced, too. This, your mother... your husband's mother probably put this together.

GUEST: Grandmother-- his grandmother.

APPRAISER: Grandmother, for a fair-- very typical thing. You need to take these out of this frame, open up the back. If you want to display them like this, that's great, but you should do it in a... with some acid-free materials, and you can get any of these acid-free materials at any good frame shop. So you've got a great group of stuff. It's the kind of things we don't see a lot on the ROADSHOW-- for what reason, I don't know. People don't bring them in. But you've got a collection here that I would say is probably worth several thousand dollars-- $2,000, $3,000 total.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: Great examples of campaign ephemera-- things that were meant to last only a very short time. And I'm glad
that you brought them in.

GUEST: Well, they mean a lot to us.