Dwight D. Eisenhower – New Autopen and Signature Stamp Patterns Discovered

Andreas Wiemer & Rick Schnake

discovered that oe of the 100 most important documents in American history was signed by Autopen

Some weeks ago I bought the book “Our Documents – 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives”. On page 181 was an illustration of a signed document – General Eisenhower’s 1944 Order of the Day. I was a little surprised when I saw the signature, because I had the feeling that I had seen the signature somewhere else. After a little research I was sure – the same signature appeared on a dealer’s list and at the leading autograph auction. In my book “Presidents of the United States – AUTOPEN GUIDE,” I wrote: “If two signatures do not match perfectly, but are quite similar, they can be from the same matrix. These slightly different signatures are known as ‘variant’ signatures”. The newly discovered signature has some similarities to known Autopen examples, but it is not a variant signature, because it matches other signatures exactly. Therefore, we have discovered a new Autopen pattern – and one of the 100 most important documents in American history was signed by Autopen.  Following are illustrations of this new Eisenhower Autopen pattern.

(letter signed Sept. 27, 1949)

(letter signed  Feb. 14, 1949)

(signature of document – published in “Our Documents – 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives”,  page 181)