Lincoln Assassination Newspapers Atlas…

January 14, 2016 by · 2 Comments 

Rick Brown been collecting Lincoln assassination newspapers for over 50 years. He has also been a historic newspaper dealer and bought, sold, or brokered in excess of one million historic newspapers. Currently he has in about 200 original Lincoln assassination newspapers – Both Union and confederate. In that same time he been setting aside reprints of the April 15, 1865 New York Herald as he came across Blog-2-18-2016-NY-Herald-Reprintsthem. In 1992 he self-published “An Atlas of Known April 15, 1865 New York Herald Reprints.” In that work, all pages of 17 different reprint versions were shown. With concentrated efforts in 2015 he contacted a few major institutions and has now discovered 48 different/variants of this edition. His online version of the current atlas that shows all pages of 45  different variants. Also included in this online atlas is background information about the reprints – who published, when, how many pages, etc. The URL for his online Atlas is: http://www.historyreference.org/newspapers/assassination/

An average of three April 15, 1865 New York Herald’s are listed on eBay EVERY WEEK – that’s over 150 per year. Almost all of these listings claim there’s is an “authentic,” “original,” or “genuine” edition.  In the past 15 years he has been conducting weekly searches for “April 15, 1865 New York Herald” on eBay. There have been approximately 2,250 listings for this edition on eBay and ONLY TWICE the listings were actually original editions! Also, since he has been going to estate sales and auctions for over 20 years, he has seen a few hundred of these editions offered – NOT ONE OF THEM were an original!! Over 95% of these reprints were produced over 100 years ago so they LOOK OLD, Looking old does not necessarily mean it is an original. Buyer beware – Collector value for these reprint editions is $10-$20 depending on condition.

If you have a Lincoln-related Web site or know someone that does, please have them add a link to my online atlas.

Rick Brown
http://www.historyreference.org
A Nonprofit Organization

Documenting an early reprint of the Ulster County Gazette…

July 22, 2013 by · 3 Comments 

If the “infamous” “New York Herald” issue of April 15, 1865 is the most common reprint edition about which we receive phone calls and messages, then the “Ulster County Gazette” of January 4, 1800 has to be next in line.

The front page of a curious little periodical titled “Type of the Times” from Cincinnati, March 15, 1858, provides solid evidence of just how early the “Ulster County Gazette” was reprinted. I had known there were many editions as I’ve seen a multitude of variant issues on different qualities of newsprint–some on rag paper–but this is the first hard evidence of just how early at least one of the reprints was created:

From the publisher of the Harper’s reprints…

August 29, 2011 by · Leave a Comment 

While Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers’ archives contain nearly every issue of Harper’s Weekly… available for purchasing… all original… I suspect more collectors are aware of the “reissue” editions of Harper’s Weekly from the Civil War years, easily noted by: “THE REISSUE OF” printed just above the “H” in “Harper’s…” on the front page. Done 100 years after the Civil War, they were a successful educational tool in classrooms across the country.

I recently found this letter from the President of the firm which did the reprints, and thought it offers some interesting insight into the history of the reprint series. It is not dated, but I suspect it was written in December, 1861.