Sticks and Stones Can Break Your Bank
PBS star and auction house founder Wes Cowan reveals his favorite collectibles.
By: Wes Cowan 07/01/2008
Gardner photographed a number of the participants in the negotiations and exposed several large format plates. Included in his work was an important image of the Crow delegates seated in an arc with Peace Commissioners to the left, most standing and distributing gifts. The Crow had been signatories to an earlier 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty. After years of seeing its articles ignored by white settlers and miners, they were skeptical of the promises made in 1867. During the negotiations, Bear Tooth, a Crow delegate, questioned the integrity of the treaty: “Your young men have destroyed my timber and green grass and burnt up my country. Your young men have killed my game, my buffalo. They did not kill it to eat it. They left it where it fell. Father, were I to go to your country to kill game, your cattle, what would you say. Would you not declare war?” The Crow nevertheless signed the treaty.One of an important group of Gardner images deaccessioned by the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland, Ohio, this photograph hammered in for $46,000 at a Cowan’s auction in 2006.
Right up at the top of my favorites of Western collectibles I’ve been fortunate to handle was a small, five-by-three-inch, four-page publication titled, “From Atchison, Kansas, to Great Salt Lake City, the Route Passing Through Denver City, thence by the Cherokee Trail along Cache La Poudre River, Through Laramie Plains, by Fort Halleck and Medicine Bow Mountains, Bridger’s Pass and Fort Bridger, to Great Salt Lake City.” Slote & Janes of New York published the pamphlet in 1863, and Ben Holladay was credited as the proprietor. The two interior pages list the names of each stagecoach stop between Atchison and Salt Lake, along with their distances apart. For a brief period between 1860-65, the Overland Daily Stage was the principal means of delivering mail between the Missouri River and California. The route from Atchison, Kansas, to Salt Lake City, Utah, was the main source of contact between the East and the various military forts and trading posts and the burgeoning Mormon population in Utah Territory. Ben Holladay—the Stagecoach King—operated the line, which was equipped with coaches manufactured by the Concord Stagecoach Company and drawn by four horses. These horse-drawn coaches left Atchison and arrived in Salt Lake City 18 days later.A classic “survival,” this little bit of ephemera almost certainly was produced in tiny numbers, a fact that was reflected in our search that revealed no extant copies. Western collectors bid it up to $4,400. Surely no figure is more identified with the rough and tumble days of the West than James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok (1836-1876). A legend during his lifetime, his stature grew after being gunned down in a Deadwood, Dakota Territory, saloon while playing poker. His hand—allegedly pairs of aces and eights, along with a queen—is the basis for the legendary “Dead Man’s Hand.”Cowan’s has been fortunate to handle a number of images of Hickok. While not the most expensive, my favorite is a small carte de visiteof him, likely taken during the Civil War when he was serving in the 8th Missouri State Militia as a scout and spy. Descended directly in the Hickok family, the image shows Bill in less than distinctive Western garb, but nonetheless captures his unique visage. One of two known to exist, this example fetched $28,750 at a Cowan’s auction in 2007.in the Western firmament are collectible! I’ve plucked some high-priced items out of the Cowan archives, even though most of us don’t have the disposable income to collect such expensive Western artifacts. Still, it’s fun to dream!
Right up at the top of my favorites of Western collectibles I’ve been fortunate to handle was a small, five-by-three-inch, four-page publication titled, “From Atchison, Kansas, to Great Salt Lake City, the Route Passing Through Denver City, thence by the Cherokee Trail along Cache La Poudre River, Through Laramie Plains, by Fort Halleck and Medicine Bow Mountains, Bridger’s Pass and Fort Bridger, to Great Salt Lake City.” Slote & Janes of New York published the pamphlet in 1863, and Ben Holladay was credited as the proprietor. The two interior pages list the names of each stagecoach stop between Atchison and Salt Lake, along with their distances apart. For a brief period between 1860-65, the Overland Daily Stage was the principal means of delivering mail between the Missouri River and California. The route from Atchison, Kansas, to Salt Lake City, Utah, was the main source of contact between the East and the various military forts and trading posts and the burgeoning Mormon population in Utah Territory. Ben Holladay—the Stagecoach King—operated the line, which was equipped with coaches manufactured by the Concord Stagecoach Company and drawn by four horses. These horse-drawn coaches left Atchison and arrived in Salt Lake City 18 days later.A classic “survival,” this little bit of ephemera almost certainly was produced in tiny numbers, a fact that was reflected in our search that revealed no extant copies. Western collectors bid it up to $4,400. Surely no figure is more identified with the rough and tumble days of the West than James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok (1836-1876). A legend during his lifetime, his stature grew after being gunned down in a Deadwood, Dakota Territory, saloon while playing poker. His hand—allegedly pairs of aces and eights, along with a queen—is the basis for the legendary “Dead Man’s Hand.”Cowan’s has been fortunate to handle a number of images of Hickok. While not the most expensive, my favorite is a small carte de visiteof him, likely taken during the Civil War when he was serving in the 8th Missouri State Militia as a scout and spy. Descended directly in the Hickok family, the image shows Bill in less than distinctive Western garb, but nonetheless captures his unique visage. One of two known to exist, this example fetched $28,750 at a Cowan’s auction in 2007.in the Western firmament are collectible! I’ve plucked some high-priced items out of the Cowan archives, even though most of us don’t have the disposable income to collect such expensive Western artifacts. Still, it’s fun to dream!
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