Mary Lincoln's engraved opera glasses?

[STS Lincolnite]

I share the concerns Roger and Dave have expressed about the authenticity of these opera glasses as a Lincoln assassination artifact. There doesn’t seem to be any extensive “chain of custody” to trace here. If what I read is correct, the physical evidence may indicate that the glasses and inscription date from the 19th century, but there doesn’t seem to be any independent corroboration to tie the glasses to William T. Kent or Mary Lincoln. Or at least I haven’t seen any.

To add to the list of Will Kent accounts, he also gave a statement on April 15, 1865 (see Tim Good’s book, We Saw Lincoln Shot) – prior to the trial testimonies and the newspaper accounts. For what its worth, he said nothing about having found any opera glasses in that statement either.

I have a number of friends whose business is in historical artifacts or who are collectors. To a person, they always first approach every artifact as inauthentic – even when they are very interested in the possibilities. There are just so many spurious artifacts out there. They tell me artifacts need to be considered inauthentic until proven authentic rather than considered authentic until proven inauthentic. Lots of potential pitfalls by doing the latter as we have seen somewhat recently in some well-known cases. I have not (yet anyway) seen enough proof for me to consider these opera glasses an authentic Lincoln assassination artifact.