Custer still making history after a century

Chronicle Staff

Published: Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Gen. George Armstrong Custer, born Dec. 5, 1839, in New Rumley, Ohio, was a typical Sagittarius, the astrological sign for those born Nov. 23 through Dec. 21, which is generally described as beng “of restless nature.” It has been said that “Sagittarius is bored easily. They love to travel and often need to be outdoors. For Sagittarius, exploration is the spice of life, whether it is mental or in the body. They are always optimistic and often have good fortune just when it is needed the most.”  This certainly sounds true to those who have learned about Custer. However, his good fortune ended badly on the battlefield of the Little Big Horn. Still, impulsively dashing forward is also a part of this horoscope, which birthdate he also shared with Walt Disney. On the anniversary of his 169th birthday recently, Cowan Auctions, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio, offered several items of Custer memorabilia in an online auction the same weekend. As was to be expected, prices for genuine Custeriana held fast and the market shows no sign of wearing down anytime soon. According to Wes Cowan, American history and antiques guru, who is often seen on “Antiques Roadshow” and “The History Detective,” “it’s a constant, he’s a constant—and there’s not a demand for just one particular period.”  Cowan figures that one of the main attractions to the Custer myth is that “he died young.”  So far as existing photos of Custer are concerned, there are numerous examples still around, but they command hefty prices. “Custer posed early and he posed often,”  Cowan wrote in one of many articles he writes for the antiques and collector’s trade. Custer rarely autographed these images, but when he did, they commanded a premium. At a Cowan sale a few years ago, signed cartes-de-viste (wallet size photos on cardboard) of the general and his wife, Libbie, brought $23,000 for the pair. Custer’s stand-alone autograph can bring upwards of $1,000, even though he signed hundreds of forms and orders during his military career. At the Dec. 4-5 sale, several Custer photographs brought prices ranging from $440 to nearly $5,000, with an average of about $1,300, including a buyer's premium.  In 1995, a diary dealing with Custer’s Seventh Cavalry, unpublished, by Cpl. William O. Taylor of Lt. Edgerly’s company, sold at Butterfield and Butterfield’s in San Francisco for $46,750, which was the exact price bid for a pair of vases with painted portraits of the Custers, commissioned while on a vacation to New Orleans selling at Heritage Auctions, Dallas, on June 27, 2007. A four-page letter in Custer’s own hand vowing loyalty to President Abraham Lincoln against the rebels hammered down for $87,750 in 2005. His camp chair brought $56,350 at another Cowan sale. Of particular desirability to serious collectors of Custer souvenirs is the silk battle flag, or guidon, made by Libbie during her husband's Civil War days. It flew over Appamattox Court House during the surrender of Robert E. Lee on April 9, 1865, and is considered one of the most important flags in American history, even though it is in extremely fragile condition. When first offered for sale many years ago, it realized $165,000 - a great price at the time. Several years ago, the flag was auctioned again, bringing over $300,000 and it sold again on the above Heritage sale for an astounding $896,250. Cowan said that about the closest collectors can get to claiming a genuine piece of what he calls the the top levels of the “Custer pyramid” are items he didn’t take with him when he left Fort Abraham Lincoln for the Little Big Horn in June of 1876. But, he added, if an artifact had some kind of  verifiable proof that it was actually on the battlefield on that fateful day, “The value would be almost impossible to estimate.”