An auction of precious Abraham Lincoln artifacts raised close to $8 million Wednesday, meaning a likely seven-figure windfall for a cash-strapped Springfield foundation that was selling part of its Lincoln collection to pay down a multimillion-dollar debt.

The Lincoln Presidential Foundation’s decision to auction off about 10% of its collection was a jolt to Illinois’ history world, but it posed a rare opportunity for Lincoln collectors to buy museum-quality relics that can go generations without being on the market.

In Wednesday’s auction, an unidentified bidder known only as “Paddle 1231” snatched up some of the most expensive and historically dramatic items for sale, including blood-stained gloves and a handkerchief Lincoln had with him the night he was fatally shot at Ford’s Theater.

The gloves were the most expensive thing sold Wednesday, drawing a winning bid, with fees included, of $1.51 million.

The buyer also finished the day with a ticket stub to Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was assassinated, a reward poster for his assassin, some White House drinking glasses, a pair of Lincoln portraits signed by the 16th president and a purported lock of Lincoln’s hair, among other things.

All told, that particular buyer spent $4 million at the auction, but it’s not clear who the person is.

Two other items fetched hefty sums from other buyers.

A monogrammed cuff button that had been on one of Lincoln’s sleeves when he was assassinated went for $445,000. And, the earliest known sample of Lincoln’s writing — a yellowed sheet on which a teenage Lincoln had done mathematical calculations and composed a poem — sold for $521,200.

Pat Nabong/AP Photos

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and First Lady MK Pritzker have a history of buying Lincoln artifacts at auction and have donated two items to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield in the past.

But asked multiple times by WBEZ if the state’s billionaire governor was participating in the auction or, in fact, was Paddle 1231, a Pritzker aide would not say before, during or after the sale.

“Still declining to comment, thanks!” Pritzker spokesman Alex Gough wrote.

Marsha Malinowski, a nationally known manuscripts expert based in New York City who was a senior executive at the Sotheby’s auction house for 26 years, watched Wednesday’s auction and said it essentially is a crapshoot when it comes to identifying buyers.

““That’s catch as catch can,” she said after the auction. “If it’s someone who bought it privately and wants to keep it private, that’s the end of it. If it’s someone who’s going to donate it in some way, you’ll probably hear about it pretty quickly.”

Neither the foundation nor the Freeman’s/Hindman auction house responded to queries from WBEZ about the auction.

The sale was necessitated because the Lincoln Presidential Foundation had been unable to fully retire a $23 million debt associated with its 2007 acquisition of the items sold Wednesday and hundreds of others from a West Coast Lincoln collector named Louise Taper.

Taper amassed her collection over four decades and wanted her artifacts to be displayed publicly for museum-goers in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield. Until 2022, that’s exactly where they were housed and exhibited under a now-expired, longstanding loan agreement between the foundation and the state-run Lincoln presidential museum controlled by the Pritzker administration.

But a messy break-up between the two entities led to the foundation’s Lincoln collection being trucked out of the museum and warehoused, mostly out of public view.

On Tuesday, in a page one Chicago Sun-Times report, Taper relayed her bitter feelings toward the foundation over a turn of events that she said she never could have foreseen nearly two decades ago when she sold her prized Lincoln possessions to the foundation for $23 million.

“I am appalled,” she said. “My intent was for these historic items to reside in a place for the public to enjoy and learn from.”

Malinowski, who said she originally met Taper through a rare manuscripts organization to which both belonged, understood Taper’s seeming disgust at how at least part of her collection has now been scattered.

“I’ve dealt with so many collectors who’ve worked at placing their collections, and I just find it very sad that Louise Taper thought she’d taken care of her collection and then to have this happen,” she said. “It’s not what a collector wants to see happen, and that’s upsetting to me.”

In its last public tax filings, the Lincoln Presidential Foundation reported that at the end of calendar year 2024 it was still carrying $7.8 million in loans.

While that’s roughly the same amount as what the items sold on Wednesday generated, Malinowski estimated only about 75% of that new windfall will wind up with the foundation, once auction house fees are subtracted.

“I just don’t know…if that’s going to be able to take care of their woes,” she said.

Dave McKinney covers Illinois and politics and was the longtime Springfield bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times.