How Much Is My Autograph Letter Worth? What (Really) Makes an Autograph Valuable

Is a letter by Victor Hugo necessarily worth more than a letter by a forgotten writer? Are four pages worth more than three lines? Is a signature enough to make a document precious? No, no and no. Here is what we actually look at.

Autograph valuation follows a subtler logic than celebrity alone. The name counts, of course. But what the letter says, to whom it is addressed, when it was written, how many letters by the same author are still in circulation, where this one comes from and in what condition it reaches us weigh at least as much — and often more.

An ordinary letter by an illustrious figure may be of limited interest; three lines directly linked to a work, a discovery or an event may be exceptional. Working out how much an autograph is worth is therefore less a matter of assessing a signature than of understanding what the document tells us, and the place it occupies in its author's life.

A.L.S., A.L., L.S.: what are we talking about?

In everyday language, “autograph” means a signature. In the collecting world, the word has a precise meaning: autograph is whatever is written in the author's own hand. Hence a vocabulary you will find in every catalogue description, ours included. French dealers use the French abbreviations (L.A.S., L.A., L.S.); their English equivalents are:

• A.L.S. (L.A.S.), autograph letter signed: text and signature in the same hand, the author's.
• A.L. (L.A.), autograph letter: entirely in the author's hand, but unsigned — which does not make it an incomplete letter, simply an unsigned one.
• L.S., letter signed: the signature is the author's, the text is in another hand, most often a secretary's.
• T.L.S. (L.D.S.), typed letter signed; D.S. (P.S.), document signed, for a document that is not a letter (a commission, a receipt, a deed).
• A.P.C.S. (C.P.A.S.), autograph postcard signed — and, on the same model, A.P.C. (autograph, unsigned) and P.C.S. (signed only).

These distinctions are not cataloguers' affectations. Napoleon is the best example: he dictated almost everything, and his letters signed “Napoléon”, “Napol”, “Nap” or a mere “Np” number in the tens of thousands — they are L.S. Rarity lies elsewhere: in the content, in the period, in the form of the signature (the full “Napoléon” is the rarest). Pieces entirely in his hand are few, and his handwriting so difficult that his own secretaries struggled with it. Beware, finally, of secretarial signatures: under the Consulate — the only period in which Bonaparte delegated his signature, by the decrees of 22 March 1800 and 27 January 1801 — Hugues-Bernard Maret, Secretary of State, signed for him by imitating his signature.

In short: for equal content, a letter entirely in the author's hand will be more sought after than a secretarial letter merely signed.

The criteria that make an autograph letter valuable

1. The author — and the rarity of his letters

The first question is obviously: who is writing? In historical autographs, demand is not the same for Napoleon, Marie-Antoinette, Proust, Monet or an author nobody collects any more. But a second question must follow at once: are this author's letters rare?

Hugo wrote tens of thousands of letters; they come up for sale very regularly, and the difference will lie in the content, the recipient and the period: a love letter to Juliette Drouet, verses on the death of Léopoldine or an unpublished text will be sought after in a way a note of thanks never will. Of Lautréamont, the poet of dark lyricism celebrated by the Surrealists, only seven letters are known. Two equally famous authors; one wrote abundantly, the other almost nothing — Isidore Ducasse, known as the Comte de Lautréamont, died at twenty-four.

And the rarity that matters here is not only the number of letters written, but the number of those that remain in private hands, and are therefore available for acquisition: a substantial correspondence deposited wholesale in a library leaves little for the collector. Such is the case of the manuscripts of Alexandre Grothendieck, the genius of modern algebraic geometry, almost all of which are held between the University of Montpellier, for his mathematical archives, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, for the Lasserre manuscripts that entered its collections in 2023.

2. The content — the true heart of value

A writer writes to his publisher: “Thank you for your letter, I shall call on Tuesday at about three.” The following week, he devotes four pages to the novel he has just finished — his masterpiece —, explains why he changed the ending and answers his objections. Two A.L.S. by the same author, a few days apart, and two documents beyond comparison: the second belongs to the history of the work.

The most sought-after letters are those touching on the creation of a work, a historical event, a discovery, a public stance, an important relationship or another famous figure. For a painter, his thoughts on a major picture; for a scientist, his research — Einstein on relativity, say; for a statesman, a decision — Franklin on American independence. The most desirable letter is therefore not the longest: it is the one whose content comes closest to what its author is remembered for.

3. The recipient

A letter is a conversation of which one half is missing; identifying the recipient is therefore essential. Proust writing to a friend and Proust writing to Gide — who had just turned down Swann for the NRF — do not carry the same historical and literary weight. A correspondence between two scientists working on the same problem, or between a painter and his dealer, can be fascinating even when the text seems mundane. See our recipients.

4. The date

The same sentence changes weight depending on the day it was written. A marching order signed by Napoleon in 1808 is an “ordinary” document; the same, dated 17 June 1815, the eve of Waterloo, is not. The letter must therefore be placed in a chronology — before or after a publication, during a war, the day after a meeting — and, when it is undated, dated: content, paper, watermark, address, postmark, known correspondence. This research is part of the expertise, and it can entirely change a letter's significance.

5. Unpublished or published?

Being unpublished strengthens a letter's interest, especially if it teaches us something. Such was the case of the letter from Rousseau to his bookseller Nicolas Duchesne that we sold: unknown to the editions of his correspondence, it shows him ill, speaking of his works and of the remedy of a “sweat” by a wood fire. But a published letter is worth no less: its presence in a reference edition — Proust's Correspondance edited by Philip Kolb, for instance — is precisely what makes it possible to establish its date, its recipient and its role in the author's biography. The most famous letters have been known for a long time; the original remains unique.

Two distinct questions, then, before any document: was the letter known? and, known or not, is it important?

6. The nature of the document and the signature

A clipped signature, a visiting card, a receipt, a typed letter and four autograph pages are not the same object. Without making a rigid hierarchy of it: a decree signed on the day of a major event is worth more than a long letter of ordinary content, and a few lines of preparatory notes for a famous work more than a domestic correspondence.

What remains is the same mental exercise as throughout this article: who wrote the text, and who signed? An authentic signature does not prove that the body of the letter is autograph — secretaries signed a great deal, and some, like Maret for Bonaparte, imitated their master's signature. Conversely, an unsigned letter may be entirely in the author's hand. A clipped signature, finally, suffers a heavy discount… barring the counter-example, as in every field of collecting: if, by some extraordinary chance, you owned a signature of Leonardo da Vinci or Christopher Columbus, even trimmed, it would remain of considerable value, so immensely rare are these signatures.

7. Authenticity — the prerequisite

Before asking how much an autograph is worth, one must make sure it is what it claims to be. One examines the handwriting and its evolution (age, illness, haste and the pen all alter it), the signature, the paper, the ink, the vocabulary, the addresses, the postal markings, the provenance. One then compares with a corpus known for certain to be in the person's hand: digitised public collections, editions of correspondence, collections of facsimiles such as the Isographie des hommes célèbres, the catalogues of specialist dealers and of major auction houses. Be wary, on the other hand, of what circulates on the internet: errors abound there, and forgeries are presented as authentic. The signatures of American presidents, massively delegated to secretaries and then to signing machines, are the best-known example; and the nineteenth-century French fashion for extra-illustrating copies with facsimile autographs has left some that still deceive an untrained eye. “The signature looks right” is not an expertise: autograph authentication needs a method, which we set out on our page on authenticity.

8. Provenance

Knowing where a letter comes from strengthens both its interest and the confidence one can place in it: the recipient's archives kept in the family, a famous collection, an old sale… just as in book collecting. Keep the old catalogues — often not digitised —, the annotated folders, a former collector's notes: they sometimes reconstruct the entire history of the document. That is the whole point of the study of provenances.

9. Condition

A letter is made to be folded, sent, opened and read; one does not expect an eighteenth-century letter to look like a fresh sheet. Mailing folds are normal. What does count are losses affecting the text, tears, faded ink, dampstains, old repairs (especially poorly executed ones), a clipped signature. Conversely, the address on the verso, postal markings and traces of a wax seal are part of the letter's material history; a surviving envelope can confirm a date or a place.

A correspondence: do not break it up before reading it

When a family owns several letters by the same author, or a sustained exchange, the temptation is to sell the fine pieces first. That is often a mistake. A coherent correspondence makes it possible to follow a relationship, to reconstruct an event, to understand the evolution of a work; apparently minor letters take on their meaning from those around them. The commercial value of a group is not always greater than the sum of its parts, but its historical value can be destroyed by too hasty a dispersal. The same goes for the notebooks, drafts, photographs and envelopes that accompany it. We see too many groups “broken up”, and it is a pity: we remain, before anything else, lovers of letters.

Looking for comparables — and why there is no price guide to autograph values

As with a book, a price search only makes sense once the document has been described. Comparing “all Berlioz's letters” will be of little use to you: a letter by Berlioz on the Symphonie fantastique has nothing to do with a note of thanks by the same Berlioz. One needs pieces comparable in nature, period, recipient, content and importance. Auction results are the best source, provided one reads them and understands the reasons behind them; and one must distinguish the asking price from the price obtained: a letter offered for five years at the same price proves only that it has not yet found a buyer at that price.

That is exactly what makes the autograph market irreducible to a price guide: every letter is unique.

The most common misconceptions

“It is signed, so it is in his hand.”
No. An authentic signature does not imply that the text is.

“It is Napoleon, so it is expensive.”
He signed tens of thousands of letters; the price depends on what it says, on its date and on how much of it is autograph. His worldwide aura does, however, support the price of everything bearing his signature.

“It has been published, so it is worth less.”
The original remains unique, and publication documents its importance: an important letter, known or not, keeps its value.

“It is short, so it is worth little.”
A letter is valued by what it contains, not by the centimetre of manuscript. One sentence is enough when it concentrates what its author stands for: General Lasalle's letter to his wife, on the eve of Wagram — “Mon cœur est à toi, mon sang à l'Empereur, ma vie à l'honneur” (my heart is yours, my blood the Emperor's, my life belongs to honour) — fits in one line and sums up the whole man.

Having an autograph letter valued or appraised

Still finding it hard to value your letter? There is no need to handle the document any further: send us sharp photographs of every page, of the verso if it bears an address, of the envelope if there is one, and of anything that helps establish the provenance. The valuation — or appraisal — is free of charge and we usually reply within 48 hours; for an entire archive, here is how we go about it.

Valuing a letter means first doing what its recipient did on opening the post: reading it.

Sources and references

• Isographie des hommes célèbres, ou collection de fac-similés de lettres autographes et de signatures, Paris, 1828-1843 — still useful for sixteenth- to nineteenth-century hands; on Gallica.
• Alain Nicolas, Les Autographes, Maisonneuve & Larose, 1988.
• Frédéric Castaing, Signatures : isographie des hommes et des femmes qui ont fait notre histoire, Atout Éditions.
• Our glossary (A.L.S., L.S., document signed, provenance) and our autographs collection.