BOSTON — Exceedingly rare tickets to Ford's Theatre were sold at auction over the weekend. Front-row balcony tickets to the theatre on the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth sold at RR Auction's annual Remarkable Rarities sale in Boston.
The tickets are stamped with the date, "Ford's Theatre APR 14, 1865, This Night Only." They bear the left-side imprint "Ford's Theatre, Friday, Dress Circle!" and are meticulously filled out in pencil with section ("D") and seat numbers "41" and "42." The right sides of the tickets are clipped, and prominently feature the printed signature of "Jas. R. Ford, Business Manager."
According to the auction house, the handwritten seating assignments and circular April 14th-dated stamp perfectly match those of other authenticated tickets. Among these is a used ticket stub from Harvard University's Houghton Library, a collection bequeathed by Evert Jansen Wendell in 1918. The Harvard stub, comprising only the left half of the ticket, is the only other known used April 14th Ford's Theatre ticket in existence.
"These front-row seats to history allowed the original theatergoers to witness a tragic performance that changed the course of our nation. We're honored to have played a part in preserving and sharing this remarkable piece of American history," said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction.
The tickets sold for $262,500 at an auction that included other rare pieces of history, like a Thomas Jefferson First Edition of Notes on the State of Virginia, which sold for $275,000, and a fully functional 1935 Enigma I cipher machine, that fetched a price of $212,500.
