A Georgia man’s collection of more than 10,000 Abraham Lincoln stamps has sold at auction in New York City for a total of nearly $2 million.

The collection was amassed by William Ainsworth, a retired executive from the consulting and accounting firm KPMG.

He inherited his father’s stamp collection more than 40 years ago. Until 1977, he paid it little mind, but a meeting with a former postmaster general changed his thinking.

A rare manuscript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln calling on the country to unite amid civil war in 1864 sold at auction Thursday for 3.4 million dollars.

The sale, held at Christie’s in New York on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, was a record for a US historical manuscript, according to the auction house, and inside the three to four million dollar estimate.

In the November 10, 1864 speech, made shortly after he won re-election, Lincoln wrote: “Now that the election is over, may not all, having a common interest, reunite in a common effort, to save our common country?” Source: AFP