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603

Samuel L. Clemens

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,000.00 - 2,500.00 USD
Samuel L. Clemens

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Auction Date:2012 Oct 17 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
DS, signed “SLC” four times, two onionskin pages, 8.5 x 11, May 26, 1890. Document outlining the expected results of the Paige Compositor, a machine designed to improve the typesetting process. It lists how successful their apprentices had been during training on the machine, as well as a projection of how much money it could save a press over the course of time. Clemens hand writes five notes and corrections throughout, initialing four of them. Clemens’s notes, in part: “The proposed cash capital was reduced to $950,000…Whitmore was in his 36th day when the machine stopped; & he had then reached 7,000 an hour…3 or 4 days’ apprenticeship on this machine will enable any young fellow of ordinary capacity to beat the oldest & ablest Mergenthaler or Rogers expert. And after one week’s apprenticeship he will beat any two Megenthaler or Rogers experts.” In very good to fine condition, with light intersecting folds, a heavy central horizontal crease to the first page, a few scattered creases, light shade of toning, a couple trivial spots of soiling, ding to the left edge of the second page, and light mirroring of the text.

When the Farnham Company approached their best-known investor, Samuel Clemens, to get behind the Paige Compositor, the author didn’t hesitate. Having spent a good deal of his teenage years setting type by hand as an apprentice printer, he believed the new machine would fill the need for a quicker, cheaper way of printing. Clemens assumed the major financial responsibility in exchange for a percentage of anticipated profits. Unfortunately, by the time inventor James Paige built it and they began to pitch their machine, the Linotype had already hit the market with great success. Too complicated (containing over 18,000 parts), too expensive, and prone to frequent breakdowns, the Paige could not compete. Clemens lost not only the bulk of his book profits but also a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance, and in 1894, was forced to file for bankruptcy. An interesting document relating to the financial unraveling of the entrepreneurial author, just four years before he learned an important lesson: ‘not to invest when you can't afford to, and not to invest when you can.’
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