President Bush is down in the polls but up in the estimation of collectors of presidential letters.
In fact, of all the recent presidents, only letters signed by the late President Gerald Ford are more valuable than Bush's, according to Gary Zimet, a leading seller of presidential letters.
On the other hand, Zimet tells NewsMax, letters from Bush's father George H.W. Bush are among the least valuable.
"I'm interested in buying letters of virtually any 20th-century president with the exception of Taft, Coolidge and Bush Sr., whom the collectors do not seem to desire unless the content is astounding," Zimet said.
Handwritten letters on White House stationery from George Bush, Sr. go for between $1,000 and $2,000, compared with $5,000 for letters from his son.
The prices do not reflect the popularity of presidents but rather the rarity of their hand-signed letters. President Dwight Eisenhower began using the autopen, a signature reproduction machine, when he was president of Columbia University and continued to use it occasionally as president.
"The first president to heavily use autopens was John F. Kennedy while he was a senator," Zimet said. "However, he used probably far more in the way of secretarial signatures, meaning signatures signed by presidential secretaries. In general, over the last 50 years, probably 50 to 90 percent of typed letters on White House stationery are signed by autopen."
Now computerized, autopens can turn out 300 signatures an hour in different patterns. Presidential letters signed by autopen Zimet deems "worthless."
To detect an autopen signature, Zimet holds a suspect letter up to the light over another letter he knows a president has signed using an autopen.
"If I have two or three letters signed by autopen and lay the signatures on top of each other, they will match exactly," Zimet said. "And nobody signs his or her name the same way twice, ever. There are always minute differences."
Zimet has found that George W. Bush has used a half a dozen different signatures with the autopen.
Most valuable are handwritten letters by sitting presidents written on White House stationery. Content also affects prices, and letters with full signatures are more valuable than those signed with a first name or initials. Letters on Air Force One or Camp David stationery are equal in value to those on White House stationery.
"I would pay up to $5,000 for a totally handwritten letter from George W. Bush," Zimet said. "By that, I don't mean a typewritten letter with a handwritten P.S. The letter must be totally handwritten, and on White House stationery. If it's signed George, I would pay half that."
Zimet said he has seen only two such handwritten letters from Bush, both to a former driver. Because Bush's father often wrote such handwritten notes, his letters are among the least valuable. But a letter with extraordinary content would fetch a higher price, even if written after a president has left the White House.
In thanking me for an autographed copy of my book "A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush," Bush's father hand-penned a note letting loose his unvarnished feelings about the media coverage of his son and specifically about author Kitty Kelly. Such a letter would have greater value than a more mundane one, Zimet observed.
A letter that is merely typed but is authentically signed by George Bush on White House stationery would go for $500 to $1,500. Bush signs about five of these a day.
"If you have a letter from Bush wherein he talks about capturing Osama bin Laden or he talks about Saddam, something with really extraordinary content, it would be worth more," Zimet said.
Likewise, a letter from Bill Clinton to his mistress Gennifer Flowers or to Monica Lewinsky would be of great value.
"A letter from Clinton to Monica would be worth a fortune," Zimet said. "I'd say easily between $10,000 to $30,000 each. Even if they were innocuous, because of the association, they'd be worth $10,000 easily."
Zimet became a philographer, as his profession is called, after corresponding in college with painter Norman Rockwell in 1974 and 1975. After leaving the City College of New York, Zimet decided he wanted to acquire more letters from famous people, so he sold the Rockwell letters and used the money to buy more valuable material.
In 1979, Zimet began buying and selling documents full-time. Currently, his web site, momentsintime.com, offers the original document convening the Salem witch trials for $150,000 and a book of poetry inscribed by Adolf Hitler to his mistress Eva Braun for $175,000.
Three years ago, Zimet sold a copy, signed by Abraham Lincoln, of the 13th Amendment freeing the slaves. The price was $1 million. He has also sold signed documents of Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Edgar Allan Poe, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.
"Believe it or not, the living person whose handwriting in a certain format is the most valuable is Paul McCartney," Zimet said. "If he were to write out the lyrics to ‘Yesterday,' it would be worth easily $300,000 to $400,000. But only in the form of lyrics of Beatles songs is he that valuable. You can buy a routine letter signed by him for $200 to $300."
Depending on content, a handwritten letter from Elvis Presley goes for between $1,000 to $3,000.
"A letter from Osama bin Laden, especially a handwritten one, would be worth at least $25,000 if it's authentically signed by him," Zimet said. "He is an extremely rare autograph, and I would have half a dozen clients who would love to buy a letter like that."
Letters signed by George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson would be of special interest, Zimet said.
"Depending on content, they're worth anywhere from $5,000 to $5 million," he said. "There's a client of mine who owns a four-page, handwritten letter of Washington, written at the Constitutional Convention, detailing the machinations at the convention. It's the finest presidential letter written by any president we have seen and is easily worth $2 million to $3 million."
Handwritten letters of Jimmy Carter on White House stationery are worth between $2,000 and $5,000, Zimet said. "But again subject matter is the key. If he's talking about the Iranian hostages, for example, on White House stationery, that would easily be worth $10,000."
However, Carter often used a SignaSigner, which duplicates handwriting.
"You really have to look very, very closely to tell that it's not his handwriting, it's a reproduction," Zimet said.
Zimet sold a letter from Carter to his brother Billy Carter telling him not to go to Libya. It was signed, "Love you, Jimmy."
After Carter found out that his brother sold Zimet the letter, "They didn't speak to each other for years," Zimet said.
For other presidential handwritten letters on White House stationery, Zimet gives these valuations:
Between $2,000 and $4,000 for Clinton; between $2,000 and $5,000 for Ronald Reagan; between $2,000 and $6,000 or $7,000 for Harry Truman; between $5,000 and $10,000 for letters from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon, and from $10,000 to $15,000 for Lyndon B. Johnson.
Only two handwritten letters from Ford on White House stationery have surfaced.
"I've run ads in the Grand Rapids press trying to find them," Zimet said. "People do have them. I've spoken to three or four people who do. But they refuse to sell even 30-plus years after he left office. They would go for between $8,000 and $12,000."
Letters from first ladies generally are worth a fraction of the value of their husband's letters.
"I'd say literally five percent if I had to pick a number," Zimet said. "The only first ladies who are worth very big money are Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson, Mary Lincoln—the first first ladies."
In convincing people to sell, Zimet will offer to make a contribution to a charity instead of a direct payment. Often, he says, the children of the recipients decide to sell.
Zimet is especially hungry for handwritten letters from George W. Bush. The fact that few handwritten notes from Bush have come on the market does not mean that he doesn't write them. Without publicity, Bush pens a note to the families of each soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once a president leaves office, his letters become less valuable because more people put them on the market. Presumably, recipients of such letters are less concerned that they might offend a former president. However, Zimet said Clinton actually encourages friends to sell letters he has sent them.
"The time to sell is now," Zimet said.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail.
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