American auction expected to fetch more than $1 million

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Documents owned by a one-time Beistle Co. president, including pages from an original Gutenberg Bible, are on the auction block and expected to fetch more than $1 million.
Nearly 44 years after the death of Henry E. Luhrs, his family is selling off more than 900 of his estimated 10,000 mementos through a Texas auction house.
"He was an accomplished historian, a devout Lutheran, and an incredible philanthropist," said Tricia Lacy, Luhrs' granddaughter and current president of Beistle, a Shippensburg party-goods manufacturer. "That [collecting] was his entertainment throughout his life."
Items for sale include a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote when he was president-elect in 1860. It has a starting bid of $90,000.
Bids for a manuscript by George Washington start at $42,000, a Thomas Jefferson letter starts at $18,000, and a government treatise by John Adams, the second U.S. president, will go for at least $15,000.
There is a $21,000 reserve for the more pristine of the two Gutenberg Bible pages.
In all, the pieces are expected to bring $1.4 million to $1.7 million, said Marsha Dixey, consignment director with Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries.
"This is an amazing collection," Dixey said. "It's really going to impact the autograph field."
Internet bidding is under way, with a live auction slated for today.
Other autographs being auctioned are those of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
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