Description:

Lynch Thomas 1749 - 1779 Signature pprox. 1 3/4” x 3/4” mounted on a larger vintage piece of paper but only adhered on one side “then no lo..Tho. Lynch” in the signers hand and on the verso we can make out “from home loaned his” although there is more. Perfect condition save faint evidence of a central crease. Thomas Lynch (1749-1779) American planter and Justice of the Peace; member of the Second Continental Congress (1776-1777); a signer of the Declaration of Independence; soon afterward he became ill and retired from Congress and in 1779 was lost at sea during a voyage to the West Indies. Fields’ study is very illuminating as far as authenticating Thomas Lynch’s signatures, which may rate as one of the most variant of all Declaration Signers. “An examination of the Lynch autographs reveals a rather wide variation in the signatures. Lyman Draper attempted to point out uniformity in the manner in which letters of the signature were disjoined. A glance at the census and the illustrations will show that the only consistency in this regard is the Signer’s inconsistency.” Fields goes on to comment about fallacies surrounding Lynch’s use of the word “Junr” following the younger Lynch’s signature. He also makes it clear, siting his illustrations, of the changing nature of Lynch’s signature, and how notably different the Signer’s father’s signature always is, alleviating any confusion. There has always been much ballyhoo about the rarity of Button Gwinnett, a signature which in document form has sold for nearly three-quarters of a million dollars. Fields puts this all in perspective. “…there are 81 Lynch signatures known to be extant: 2 ALS, 1 ADS, 10 DS…” The rest of the examples are signatures, mostly clipped out of books, and many last name only “Lynch”. Yet at the writing of Fields’ study, there were 51 Gwinnett autographs “1 ALS, 1 LS, 3 ADS, 40 DS” . In our near 40 years in business University Archives, has bought and sold more than 10% of the surviving examples (along with two Button Gwinnett’s ) and authenticated at least as many. We would guess that at least half the known examples reside irretrievably in institutions and most of the rest are attached to sets. Of all the signatures we have seen or handled this rates as the best and the fact that it has extra words makes it a near “partial autograph document signed” . Recently at Sothebys a DS sold for $212,000 and we have witnessed several non-document examples bringing well over $30,000 in recent years. Authentication includes the same copy of the Charles Hamilton certificate from 1995 that accompanied its first appearance as well as a 2006 University Archives certificate. Also included is the original “Remember When Auctions, Inc.” from March 15 1997 as well as the original invoice of $16,500 from this auction. Provenance: Charles Hamilton 1995 Remember When Auctions 1997 to John Hewitt, Palm Beach, Fla. To RR Auctions Private treaty sale 2008 to University Archives to A Mid-West Gentleman 2008

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $99 $10
$100 $299 $20
$300 $499 $25
$500 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $2,999 $200
$3,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 + $5,000