The siglum L.A.S. belongs to the vocabulary of nineteenth-century autograph dealers: the Charavay, Laverdet and Gabriel Charavay catalogues fixed, in the 1860s, a grammar still used by booksellers today, in which each letter of the siglum answers a question. "L" indicates that the document is a letter, addressed to someone; "A" that the text is autograph, in the author's own hand; "S" that it is signed. An L.A. is autograph but unsigned — common in familiar letters or drafts — an L.S. is signed only, the body having been written by a secretary or, in the twentieth century, typed; P.S. and P.A.S. are pieces — receipts, attestations, poems — which are not letters.
The L.A.S. is the basic unit of autograph collecting, and its description follows a set format: author, recipient, place and date, number of pages and format ("1 p., quarto", "3 pp., octavo"), support (watermarked laid paper, headed paper), address and seal if present, condition (folds, dampstains, losses), then the content, summarised or quoted, which accounts for almost all its value: a letter from Apollinaire about his poems, from Delacroix about his painting, from Verlaine to his publisher Vanier about his debts, is valued for what it says. Expert assessment compares the handwriting and signature with authenticated examples, checks the consistency of paper, ink and date, and searches for the letter in published correspondence, where an unpublished letter stands out.
The L.A.S. is often confused with the L.S., which considerably affects its value, and letters copied out by a secretary or period facsimiles are sometimes mistaken for autographs; dictated letters, circulars with a printed signature, and letters "signed" by stamp are classic pitfalls.
