Signed Lincoln and Booth Photos Fetch Over $100,000 Each at Swann Galleries

An 1863 signed photo of Abraham Lincoln sold for $139,200 and an 1862 signed photo of his assassin John Wilkes Booth sold for $107,950 at Swann Galleries' 'Important Signed Photographs from a California Family Collection' auction on May 7, 2026. The collection, compiled by a California investment counselor who died in 2017 and his son, also included signed photographs of Theodore Roosevelt and his cabinet ($15,240), Martin Luther King Jr., Babe Ruth ($11,430), Thomas Edison ($15,240), Mark Twain ($11,430), Albert Einstein ($18,820), Charles Dickens ($8,890), and a joint signed photo of John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower ($20,320). Swann autographs specialist Marco Tomaschett highlighted the rarity of the Lincoln photos due to his assassination in 1865, and noted the Kennedy-Eisenhower photo as particularly fascinating for its historical transition context.