Mary Lincoln's engraved opera glasses?

[Dave Taylor]

I have some serious doubts. There is no provenance aside from the inscription which could easily have been faked (IMO). It would only take a bit of research to find the name of William Kent and attribute these glasses to him. Yet nowhere in Kent's statement or testimony does he mention anything about these glasses. Kent also lived his life in D.C. dying there in 1917, which makes it harder to explain how the opera glasses got to England.

My main question is if the auction house made an effort to see if these opera glasses fit in Mary Lincoln's opera glass case in the Ford's Theatre collection?

Though, to be honest, I don't know the provenance of that artifact off the top of my head either.

I'm surprised Ed was so emphatic in his opinion it was genuine. There's not enough provenance to make me a believer.