
Gray’s Auctioneers of Cleveland held a sale on November 30, 2011 that included one example of the work of the master Lincoln forger, Joseph Cosey (1887-1950). Cosey was quite clever in his use of ink made using 19th century recipes and old period paper. One of the tell-tale signs on this fake ALS is the number “8” which has the lower loop larger than the upper loop. If Lincoln wrote the number “8” a hundred times, there might only be two examples where this occurs. The seller represented it as a Cosey forgery and it sold for $510.