Some Minor Jottings & Interesting Facts
A few small items of hopefully educational interest for all collectors!
Did you know that–
If you are tired of handwriting letters you can have your own machine “handwritten” letters. And who is to say that some folks out there don’t? “Your Handwriting” is a software package for Windows-based computers that can personalize what you type on a PC keyboard. You handwrite letters and numbers on a paper template with the software package, scan the template and you have a “True Type” font of your handwriting? You can view and edit before saving. Scary? You can buy this package for less than $20 from Data Becker (databecker. com) at software retail outlets near you!
Also, in Lamar Graham’s column “Inside Dot.Com” published in “Parade Magazine” on Sunday, June 24, 2001 was the following:
“Here’s a nifty way to personalize what you print out. For about $20, Font Source will transform your handwritten signature into a font– that is, an actual typeface that you can insert into any document and adjust to whatever size you want. Simply write your name several times on a blank paper, then mail it (or scan your name and e-mail it), with payment, to Font Source. They’ll e-mail you a small font file to install on your computer (PC or Mac) to use with all your word-processing and graphics software. For more information about this signature font or to order online, visit www.fontsource.com.”
OK friends, imagine if you send them your name, which just so happens to be “John F.Kennedy”, and you e-mail them a scan of an authentic JFK and send your $20. Can you imagine the autograph scam possibilities? Can you see the lovely framed items now with the fabulous content letters or the great matted and framed signed (not inscribed) photographs? Sheesh. Progress? Scary!!
Thomas Jefferson was the first U. S. President who had been a state governor, the first president elected by the House of Representatives, the first to have served in a presidential Cabinet, and the first President inaugurated in Washington, D. C.
The ball-point pen was patented on Oct. 30, 1888 to John Loud of Weymouth, Mass.
Two digit postal codes were introduced on May 1, 1943 in Pittsburgh; the five-zone-number system, or Zip Code, was inaugurated in July 1963.
James K. Polk was the only Speaker of the House of Representatives ever elected President of the United States.
In 1928, Frank T. Johns of Oregon, the presidential candidate of the Socialist Labor Party, drowned in a river trying to rescue a boy. In 1924, Johns had received 36,428 popular votes; his replacement on the 1928 ticket, Verne L. Reynolds of New York, secured 21,608 popular votes.
Calvin Coolidge was the only American president born on the 4th of July; Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
What US Vice President and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize composed one of the great Amercian pop standards, “It’s All In The Game (‘Many a tear has to fall, but it’s all in the game’)” the first 45rpm rock and roll stereo hit of 1958 sung by Tommy Edwards? He also is credited with the idea of prosecuting mobster Al Capone for tax fraud. The answer: Charles G. Dawes (1865-1951), Vice President 1925-29 (Coolidge). His 1912 composition “Melody in A” was used for “It’s All In The Game”. Ironically he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his Dawes Plan regarding German WW I reparations which in a way led directly to WW II!
If you are reading this, let me know..if you are the first one who “calls in”, you will get a $10 credit towards any purchase of $50 or more from this on-line catalogue!
STRANGE BUT TRUE! Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s oldest son was “on the scene” so to speak, of three presidential assassinations in his lifetime! After his father was shot at Ford’s Theater, he was summoned to the house across the street from the Theater to which Lincoln was carried after he was shot, and where he died. On July 2, 1881, Secretary of War Lincoln went to the railroad station in Washington (Union Station) to tell President Garfield that business pressures kept him from accompanying the President to Elberton, New Jersey. When Lincoln arrived, Garfield had just been shot by Charles Guiteau. Some 20 years later, Lincoln was invited to meet President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York on September 61, 1901. When Lincoln arrived, he saw a group gathered about McKinley who had just been mortally wounded by Leon Czolgosz!
The first coin bearing the likeness of a living President was the 1926 Sesquicentennial half dollar which had the heads of Washington and Calvin Coolidge on the obverse and the Liberty Bell on the reverse. 141,120 pieces were struck at the Philadelphia Mint.
If you wanted to collect the autographs of all 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence, whose autograph would be the most expensive and difficult to obtain? The answer: Button Gwinnett’s. He wasn’t exactly Thomas Jefferson or John Adams, but while he is one of the more obscure Founding Fathers, his autograph is the most highly sought after! The reason for the extremely high value of Gwinnett’s autograph is its scarcity; only 51 Gwinnett signatures are known to exist, most in the form of IOUs. Of the 51, 41 are in museums and libraries, meaning there are only perhaps 10 Gwinnett signatures in private collections. If you’re an extraordinarily wealthy autograph collector hoping to obtain the signatures of all 56 Signers, Gwinnett’s rare autograph is the Holy Grail, valued at as much as a million dollars. The reason his autograph is so rare stems from different factors. One, Gwinnett struggled with debt his entire life, and he was killed in a duel in 1777 at age 42 by one Lachlan McIntosh. By the 1800s, his entire family line had disappeared, so there was no one left to care for his possessions in Savannah, Georgia, which was ransacked during both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. ​
