Froelich Confederate Sword & Journal, ca. 1862
GUEST:
This was given to me by my grandfather. It belonged to his grandfather, who was a captain in the Confederate Army, stationed at Camp Lubbock in Houston, Texas. And he was a payroll master, and this is his sword, and this is his personal journal, along with payroll records. It opens up... he's drafted a love letter to his wife. He died of, in a measles epidemic, and so it stops in 1863, I believe. The first ten pages are an essay he wrote on education and the importance of education. And then he begins a personal daily journal of the activities at Camp Lubbock.
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
And then in the back of the journal it is payroll records.
APPRAISER:
Well, I'm glad that you brought... brought it in today. Because when you were walking up in the line, the three of us were just like... bing! We saw the hilt coming.
GUEST:
Oh...
APPRAISER:
So when you came up there, there was kind of... I don't know whether you noticed, but we were kind of rushing back and forth a little bit because we were so excited to see if it was an original or not. And actually it is an original. It's made by Louis Froelich out of North Carolina, and it's a staff and field officers' sword. It was made for the Confederate Army, as you can tell. We have the C.S.A. on the hilt. And one of the other things we look for on these types of swords are assembly marks. Now, inside of the sword... we have a mark here and a mark on the hilt. And those marks correlate so we know that these two came together. I'm assuming you added the...
GUEST:
I hung it from my mantel by the tacky chain.
APPRAISER:
I figured so. You've still got a little bit of original paint left. The rest of it's fairly worn, but it's still in wonderful condition compared to what we normally see.
GUEST:
It was used.
APPRAISER:
Right, oh, it was definitely used and it fits his rank. The sword alone without any provenance, without the journal, would be in the vicinity of $12,000.
GUEST:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. (laughs)
APPRAISER:
Now, now you have to add in the journal and all the provenance you have. And we felt at the table, we discussed this for a little while after we wiped up the drool, that at auction we would put an estimate of $18,000 to $22,000 on the grouping.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, yeah, it's that great.
GUEST:
That's wonderful.
APPRAISER:
I mean I'm sitting here talking with my hands. Give me another pointer and I'll be like Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops. It's... it's just crazy, it's great stuff.
GUEST:
This is great.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, well, thank you for bring it in today.
GUEST:
So glad I held onto it, and so glad it's still legible.
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