Unrecorded Harry Truman Secretarial Signatures

I recently purchased an entire archive of Secretary of the Treasury under Truman, John W. Snyder. Going through this archive has been enlightening on a number of levels. Illustrated here are some examples that will be valuable to Truman collectors and are published for the first time.

  1. March 3, 1939 Authentically signed by Truman as Senator
  2. May 2, 1940 proxy signed letter "Harry S. T. by BWT" unquestionably signed for the Senator by his wife and future first lady Bess Wallace Truman.
  3. May 18, 1944 proxy signed letter by unknown secretary. A convincing imitation that is quite different than the ones illustrated by Hamilton on page 541 of "American Autographs."
  4. April 19, 1948 Authentically signed letter as President
  5. Jan. 28, 1971 Authentically signed Bess Truman letter on HST stationary as former first lady.
  6. A comparison of the two authentic Trumans and the secretarial.

(Click images to enlarge.)


Views: 2592

Tags: Bess, Harry, Truman, forgery, proxy, secretary

Comment by Bill Panagopulos on March 12, 2011 at 7:42am
Pretty darn good imitation. Thanks for bringing it up, John.
Comment by john reznikoff on March 12, 2011 at 8:10am
Bill,
I have seen really good content WW2 content letters with similar proxy signatures. They are few and far between . I am amazed how much Truman actually signed during his career. It all goes down hill after him starting with Ike and JFK
Comment by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on March 12, 2011 at 10:20am

Thanks for posting this, John. I added a comparison of the two authentics and the secretarial at the end.

If anyone else can find one of these, please post it.

Comment by john reznikoff on March 12, 2011 at 12:43pm
Thanks steve
Comment by Edward on April 20, 2015 at 11:12pm

Hello all, I just stumbled upon this sight.You find us amazing John. I'm finding out Harry Truman with co-signers are worth a fortune.

I was a swap meet and found this, any input would be great. Thank You

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