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Original steel engraving plate of Abraham Lincoln, 2.5˝ x 3.5˝ x .25˝, with the front featuring Alexander Gardner's iconic 'Gettysburg' portrait of President Lincoln, and the reverse bearing the stamped maker’s mark of John Sellers & Sons of Sheffield, England. In fine condition.
In the 1840s, John Sellers (c.1793–1855) began manufacturing copper and steel plates and tools for engravers, a line that became the firm’s speciality and later expanded to include transfer plates, steel and monogram dies, photographers’ plates, and patent etching ground. In 1838, the company was granted its corporate mark: a dagger entwined with the letter “S.”
John was joined in the business by his sons William Bush (1822–1880), Alfred (1824–1882), and Abraham Sellers (1827–1877). The firm developed a growing trade with the United States, opening an office on Pearl Street, New York, in 1847. It exhibited cutlery and machine-ruled steel plates at the New York Exhibition of 1853. Alfred relocated to New York, spending around fifteen years there as a general merchant and agent for Sheffield firms such as toolmaker James Howarth. In 1856, William Bush and Abraham further expanded the company’s innovations by patenting an improvement in ever-pointed pencil cases.
