This article is reposted with permission from Jaren Gendron (Collected Culture).
One of the great pleasures of collecting is the people it brings together and the communities that are built around shared collecting interests. This past Wednesday evening, we had the opportunity to attend the opening event of the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Manuscript Society, which was held in Boston this year in recognition of both the city’s deep historical significance and the approaching 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution.
As longtime members of the Manuscript Society, all of us at JG Autographs were especially pleased to see this year’s gathering take place in our home state. The opening reception was held at Boston’s historic Omni Parker House, a fitting venue for an organization dedicated to preserving and studying the documents, letters, manuscripts, and autographs that help tell the story of our past.
Founded in 1948 as the National Society of Autograph Collectors, the Manuscript Society has spent nearly eight decades bringing together collectors, historians, archivists, dealers, and researchers who share a passion for preserving historical documents and the stories they contain. Today, it remains one of the most important organizations serving the manuscript and autograph collecting community.
The evening served as both a welcome gathering for members from around the country and a fundraising event for the Society, featuring a silent auction of donated historical material. Over the years, we have been proud supporters of the Manuscript Society’s fundraising efforts, helping sell hundreds of donated autographs, letters, and historical documents to benefit the organization. Several years ago, JG Autographs was selected by the Society as one of its official auction partners, allowing us to further support its mission through the sale of these important historical artifacts.
For the silent auction, we donated a lovely carte-de-visite of the Bunker Hill Monument. With this year’s meeting taking place in Boston and tied to the nation’s approaching 250th Anniversary, we wanted to make sure our donation reflected both our city and its Revolutionary history. Beyond helping raise funds for the Society, we thought it would also make a wonderful keepsake for the winning bidder to remember their trip to Boston. Few landmarks are more closely tied to the story of the American Revolution than the Bunker Hill Monument, which still stands today overlooking the site of one of the conflict’s most iconic early battles.
Beyond the auction itself, what makes events like this special is the opportunity to connect and reconnect with fellow collectors, dealers, scholars, and friends who share a common appreciation for history. In an increasingly digital world, there is still something uniquely meaningful about gathering around original documents and handwritten letters that have survived generations and continue to connect us directly to the people and events that shaped our world.
This year, it was great to catch up with Manuscript Society Vice President Peter Klarnet, whom I have known for many years and who also serves as Senior Specialist for Manuscripts and Printed Americana at Christie’s in New York. Peter also served as the auctioneer for the fundraiser auction and did an exceptional job calling the lots while keeping attendees engaged and enthusiastically bidding throughout the evening.
It was also a pleasure to meet Executive Director Diana Arfine for the first time after corresponding by email for many months. Likewise, it was wonderful to finally meet longtime Manuscript Society board member Robert Hopper and his lovely wife, Carol. Robert has been my primary contact within the Society for many years, and despite working together for so long, we had never actually been in the same room until this event.
With Boston serving as this year’s host city, and with the nation’s semiquincentennial on the horizon, the evening was a fitting reminder that history is not only preserved in museums and archives, but also through the efforts of collectors and organizations like the Manuscript Society that continue to safeguard these links to the past.
