Two historic tickets used the night of Lincoln’s assassination fetch $262,500
Two tickets that once cost 75 cents apiece for top-tier seats at the theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated reportedly sold at an auction for $262,500 on Saturday.
The green tickets gained entry to a performance of the comedic play, “Our American Cousin,” at the historic Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865 — the night Lincoln was shot in the head by actor John Wilkes Booth.
The two tickets auctioned off at more than twice the expected price, the Washington Post reported.
The tickets — labeled 41 and 42 D — granted complimentary front-row seats in the dress circle of the theater to the original owners, who are currently unknown but believed to have been present for the assassination of the former commander in chief. The seller of the two tickets reportedly bought them for $83,650 in 2002.
In addition to the tickets, the RR auction in Boston also sold a first edition book for $593,750, which included the famous 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates from when Lincoln ran for Senate against Stephen Douglas, and a signed check for $5 Lincoln gave to his African American valet.
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