Two Tickets to History

[David Lockmiller]

I found the following story previously published in the New York Times on Sept. 26, 2023:

Headline: Two Tickets to History

Two bits of green paper for admission to Ford’s Theater on the night of Lincoln’s assassination were sold for $262,500.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, playgoers settled into their seats at Ford’s Theater in Washington to see a production of the comedy “Our American Cousin.” It was an exciting night, because President Abraham Lincoln was in attendance, sitting in a private box with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

Around 10:15 p.m., the actor Harry Hawk, playing Asa Trenchard, said the line, “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!” It got a big laugh, as it did every night. And masked by the noise, an assailant, John Wilkes Booth, fatally shot the president.

It was a momentous night in American history. And afterward, the theater lovers in seats D41 and D42 decided to save their tickets.

Those tickets were sold at auction on Saturday by RR Auction of Boston for $262,500, including the auction house fee. The house had listed the estimated sale price before the auction as “$100,000+”.

The auction house said the seller was a collector who bought the tickets in 2002 for $83,650 at Christie’s as part of a sale of historical documents owned by the magazine publisher and politician Malcolm S. Forbes, who purchased them in 1992.