Lot # 941: 1911 John T. Brush Signed Handwritten Letter - Beckett Full LOA

Financial correspondence from the distant past signed by New York Giants owner John T. Brush surfaces, with this 1911 handwritten letter. Appearing on The Menger hotel of San Antonio stationary, this ancient letter is dated 12/19/11. Suffering failing health, the iron-willed Brush ordered the reconstruction of the Polo Grounds, after a fire decimated the stadium in April of 1911. Brush battled illness, and hung on until November of 1912, when he died in his private train car, as he was headed west for recuperation.

This letter is addressed to "Dear Harry", which could be his son-in-law Harry Hempstead, who succeeded Brush as president of the Giants. Ominously, this letter opens with the passage "Would you sign & return to me the enclosed so my records will show our transaction if anything happens to me or you". Brush has signed this letter familiarly as "John T", by means of a steel-tip fountain pen with ("8.5") potency, and he concluded his correspondence with a holiday greeting postscript. An accompany page, also written on The Menger letterhead, lists a series of stock share totals offered as collateral for large sum loans at 5% interest. The companies named are Brush's Indianapolis department store When Clothing, National Exhibition & Stock, and Nevada Consolidated, which may have been a mining concern. Showing due dates in the year 1912, this stock list page is absent its bottom-third, which has been clipped off. The removed section detailed dates for sending checks to Brush.

Beckett full LOA.