In the field of Americana, publishing now seems to be the popular sport. To paraphrase author H.L. Mencken, the impulse behind such efforts is always more orgiastic than reflective. This in mind, I needed to make certain we had good reason for going to press. Our mandate came with the answers to three questions: Were we serving an identifiable community? Were we providing something of worth to that community - something otherwise not provided? And, most important, could we afford to undertake such a venture?

Our "community" has no borders but enjoys the commonality of a shared passion: the love of Lincoln, the love of American history. We number many different citizens in this community: the numismatists, the philatelists, the ephemerists, not to mention the occasional scholar and collector. But what of substance could we offer? It would be arrogant to claim discovery of an overlooked tribe; those interested in the material culture of Lincoln and his contemporaries. Over the past 130 years, there have been innumerable journals, quarterlies, and association-newsletters addressing every aspect of Lincoln, most to the point of obscene minutia. Yet, only on occasion, are the "crass" interests of collectors and dealers, those committed to the hunt for artifacts, addressed. Academics have always divorced discussions of worth from discussions of dollars and cents. While appropriate, it unfortunately relegates the artifacts we love to only serving as illustrations that accompany the more "scholarly" work. Simply put, we offer in this journal exactly what I want to read. New finds. Details on items in the market. What something sold for in an auction. Who are the players? How do I know if it is a fake? How do I find resources to help? Sure... on occasion we will deviate with a more erudite study. But overall our mission is to bring together those interested in the collectibles of this country's most interesting times, and share knowledge, insight, and, yes... community.

When asked to write a brief essay on collecting for the two-volume work, Running For President, edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (Simon & Schuster, 1994) I reflected that:

Collectors of political Americana are indebted to Thomas Jefferson for providing the rationale for what may be irrational behavior. In an 1817 letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote that a" morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." What a wonderful justification for acquisitive behavior. Those of us preoccupied with the search for campaign buttons, ribbons, and ferrotypes are helping in that cause of rescuing priceless "morsels of genuine history." Of course few would accuse the average collector of such selflessness - but there is an element of truth to Jefferson's thought. The reason so many artifacts of our electoral history still exist is because people have valued them. From George Washington's first oath of office in 1789, Americans have saved and treasured memorabilia that provide a direct link to those we elect to office. And while this link is often distant, it is material and very personal.

Whenever asked why I collect presidential campaign memorabilia, I respond "Fix in your mind an image of Abraham Lincoln." I then reach into my wallet and remove a five-dollar bill. "Is this the picture you were thinking of?" The answer is usually yes. I then ask the person to think of another image of Lincoln. The image remains the same: that of a bearded, weathered sixteenth president.

When I think of Lincoln, I visualize the Matthew Brady portrait taken a few hours before his 1860 Cooper Union speech in New York City. The truly rich portrait shows a warmth in the clean-shaven candidate that is missing from later photographs. Lincoln credited the photo with helping him to win the election. Those who value presidential ephemera value all this, as well as the incidental knowledge that exactly 127 different pictures of Lincoln were taken from his first sitting in 1846 as a lawyer in Springfield to a postmortem picture taken nine days after the President's assassination. The historical knowledge required of collectors gives them an appreciation of the real Lincoln, who was a wily, flawed, often manipulative politician, as well as our noblest statesman. The attribution "Honest Abe" is not a later creation of legend or demagoguery. Like the contemporary sound bite, it was a campaign slogan used on silk ribbons in his first national campaign. Collectors of political Americana relish the knowledge gained with each acquisition. The " morsels," therefore, are not just material.