Extremely rare portrait engraving of Harrison, approximately 1.25 x 1.75, signed in ink beneath the image, “Gen. W. H. Harrison.” The signature is written on an integral tab left in place when the engraving was trimmed at an early date. The engraving is, in turn, affixed to the front free end page of the book Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes, Contrasted with Real Christianity by William Wilberforce (New York: American Tract Society, no date; circa 1830), quarter-leather-bound hardcover, 3.75 x 6, 375 pages. The extreme rarity of any signed image of Harrison can hardly be exaggerated. To place its significance in perspective, one may begin with the observation that Harrison died in 1841, only two years after the invention of photography. It wasn’t until 1845, shortly before his death, that ex-President Andrew Jackson became the first chief executive to be captured on film. The history of signed presidential photos was delayed until the 1860s, when a process for printing photos on paper was developed, and the elderly Martin Van Buren became the earliest president to sign his photographic likeness. The standard reference The Sanders Price Guide to Autographs notes no documented signed image of a president prior to Van Buren, aside from an engraving signed by John Quincy Adams; in his book History Comes to Life, Kenneth Rendell rates this same Adams image as “very rare.” Significantly, neither Sanders nor Rendell makes mention of a signed Harrison image at all, aside from the comment in Sanders that “there are no known SPs of W. H. Harrison.” This acknowledgement—or perhaps, lack of acknowledgement—from both sources takes on even greater importance in light of Rendell’s observation that the total number of items signed by Harrison during his monthlong tenure as president numbers between approximately 20 and 30. It would seem, then, that not only does a signed image of Harrison exceed the legendary rarity of his presidential material, but it represents one of the earliest (and, given J. Q. Adams’ later death, quite possibly the earliest) signed image of a U. S. president. The engraving and signature are in good to very good condition, with slight blot to first letter, light soiling, small edge tears to image, and close trimming to signature as noted above. The book itself exhibits typical rubbing and light wear to covers, scattered staining and spotting to interior, and the front cover is mostly detached (though easily restorable). A singularly remarkable presidential treasure that truly merits an all-too-overused phrase: one of a kind! Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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