Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation Owes Big $$$

[davg2000]

The bank currently holding the note for the amount left on the Taper Collection purchase debt merely wants its money, a year from now. The bank doesn’t care about the Hat’s appraisal, its worth in 2007, or its worth now. So, in the “fire sale” that David alludes to, the Foundation would sell whatever it takes—and it may take everything—to come up with the money.

Since soon after the Foundation purchased the Taper Collection, visitors to the Museum have constantly been solicited to purchase membership in the Foundation to “ensure that ALPLM remains the ‘permanent home’ of the articles.” Early on, the Foundation knew what the future could hold.

The irony is that the Hat may be genuine. James Hickey, Louise Taper, and the experts from ALPLM who vouched for it surely thought so. Provenance doesn’t make something genuine—it merely makes an item’s genuineness easier to accept.

In Springfield I don’t think it was common knowledge that, as the debt was being retired, items were not being transferred to the ALPLM’s permanent ownership.

James Cornelius’s dismissal, Volunteers were told last week, was not tied to any of this, despite how it may appear. Apparently dismissing anyone from the service of the State of Illinois is a protracted process, which for Doctor Cornelius began several months ago.