In 1920, it seemed clear to most political observers that Ohio Governor James M. Cox would not defeat Warren G. Harding in the presidential election. People were tired of the Democrats and were going to vote Republican. However, a campaign had to be launched, which meant, among other things, producing buttons bearing images of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates for distribution. This was another thing the Democrats did not do well, as usable photos of vice presidential nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt were difficult to find, and the campaign did not begin producing these buttons until almost too late. As a result, only about 100 of these buttons – called “jugates” due to their side-by-side images – were produced.
More of these buttons probably could not have affected the outcome of the election, but the rarity of these one-and-a-quarter-inch round buttons gave them great value to American political collectors. In 2022, one was auctioned at Hake’s Auctions in York, Pennsylvania for $185,850. “There are a lot of collectors of sets of these buttons, ever since these campaign buttons were produced, and the Cox-Roosevelt jugate is the rarest of them, which is why the price was so high,” Scott Musil, Hick’s American director, told the Observer.
Americana is a very broad category, encompassing almost anything produced in the country over the past 400-plus years. Folk art may include: handcrafted items such as weathervanes, quilts, carousels, and carved decoys; Political and historical memorabilia. information; Daguerreotypes of the Civil War; powder horns and muskets of the Revolutionary War; historical manuscripts; furniture; Old advertising posters and popular culture. “Someone recently sent me a ticket to the Beatles’ last concert in America, on August 12, 1966,” Musil said. The estimate for this shipment will be $1000-2000.
Americana is in a class by itself. For example, there is no Germania or Britannia, or any other kind of foreign equivalent. When the Observer asked to define Americana, heads of Americana departments at auction houses were generally at a loss and resorted to describing the specific types of objects they included in sales. There are “two types: books and manuscripts and everything else,” said Eric Groening, a senior consultant at Sotheby’s responsible for American furniture, folk art and Americana. As a sales category, it is a variety of objects that are (usually) handmade or handwritten but are (usually) not fine art. This definition does not quite apply, since these Cox Roosevelt buttons were produced by machines and the painted images are often sold at Americana auctions.
There are buyers exclusively dedicated to this thing called Americana, but Julia Jones, head of sales for Americana at Christie’s, noted that some of the collectors she has worked with are interested in modern art and see connections to the works of popular artists. Other buyers are creating a vintage room in their contemporary homes, outfitting it with antique furniture and other decorative arts that fall into the Americana category. Earlier this year, Christie’s auction house sold a portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart whose first owner was James Madison. Otherwise, Stewart is a painter whose work is sold at American art sales, but “this is an iconic image of America. It’s the image we see on the one-dollar bill.” It is not just a work of art, but “an exceptional piece of American heritage,” which is why he offered it for sale at Americana.
Americana knows no political doctrine. A recent online auction Hick conducted included a ceramic plaque with an anti-slavery image, but the auction house also sold satirical Jim Crow-era depictions of African Americans on plates and other items. It is not a question of being fair to both sides; It’s all Americana.
Since most American pieces consist of objects from the distant past—colonial America—to not so long ago, buyers tend to be history buffs. “A lot of them are amateur historians, but some of them are actual teachers who want to buy things they can display in their classrooms,” David Lindemann, director of the Anderson School of Americana in Ohio, told the Observer. Anderson Americana also had the opportunity to sell Cox-Roosevelt jugates, with one going for $42,900 in 2006 and another for $35,000 in 2022. Lindemann noted that for some buyers, the date they are looking for is their own. “We have Vietnam veterans and people who were part of the SDS. They’re still angry at each other, but they’re both buying from us.”
One would have to be a Civil War buff to pay $281,000 in 2022 for more than 1,000 documents in six boxes housing the archives of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Abraham Lincoln, or $27,500 in 2020 for the memoirs of a cavalry officer protecting immigrants on the Overland Pass in 1865. Both sales took place at Swan Galleries, an auction house in New York City. Which deals primarily with printed materials, has held dedicated Americana sales since 1942. Rick Statler, president of Swan’s Americana division, told the Observer that most of the bidders and buyers are in the United States, as one might expect, “but we also have some buyers overseas, in Europe and Asia. There’s a subculture of people in Germany and France who are interested in American Indians.”
Devoted watchers of the History Channel’s American Pickers might assume that interest in Americana is largely rural charm, with the show’s hosts spending their time searching barns and outbuildings for interesting objects. But Caroline Tamposi, director of Americana consignments and political memorabilia at Heritage Auctions, based in Dallas, Texas, which holds more than a half-dozen Americana sales each year, says, “This is more often where the material is sourced than where it’s going.” A high percentage of buyers live in cities in California, New York and Texas — “places where they have a lot of money.”
Tamposi agrees that many, if not most, buyers are history buffs, “a fair number of lawyers and doctors, and sometimes people with old Texas oil money,” since some pieces can be expensive. Museums and academic institutions also offer to purchase items to add to their collections. In a space between curiosity and history, a recent Heritage Auction included miniature portraits of George and Martha Washington, created in 1857, atop sealed envelopes containing real locks of hair. An 1869 letter from General George Custer to his wife Elizabeth “Libby” Custer, written a little more than a month after the Battle of Washita, sold last February at Heritage for $550,000. In this 21-page letter, Custer describes the conclusion of the winter campaign on the southern plains, his role in council with Plains chiefs, his dealings with the captured Kiowa chiefs, Satanta and Lone Wolf, and his growing reputation as an “Indian fighter.” Objects that seem to tell a story from a pivotal point in American history — especially items dating back to the Revolutionary or Civil Wars — are most in demand, but objects from shipwrecks (coins, flatware, jewelry) or the Wild West (Annie Oakley’s gloves or the diary of a Billy the Kid henchman) are also popular, Tamposi said.
The world of Americana ranges from pop culture collectibles to luxury items, and prices follow suit. One of the most expensive items ever sold at a Sotheby’s Americana auction was a tea table, supposedly made in 1765 by cabinetmaker John Goddard in Newport, Rhode Island, which sold to an antiques collector in 2005 for $8.4 million. “It’s utilitarian, but it’s also real sculpture,” Groening said.
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