HISTORIC JEWISH BUTTON RARITY C. 1899 “CAPT. ALFRED DREYFUS” AND “EMILE ZOLA.”
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Winning Bid:
$1,729.88
(Includes 18% Buyer's Premium)
Bidding Ended:
Tuesday, November 13, 2018 10:00:00 PM (20 Minute Clock Begins At Tuesday, November 13, 2018 10:00:00 PM)
Item Description
7/8" real photo button picturing both men in sepia w/their names above. Reverse has brass collet and fixed horizontal pin w/original back paper reading "Mandel Kern/Photographer, Now At/196 E. Broadway/Button Made By/B. Harris, (?) 52 Bowery." This button originated in the Joe Stone Collection which formed the basis for Hake's Collectible Pin-Back Buttons book. It is the only example we are aware of and is the same example we sold in Auction #200 for $1,725. Very minor surface wear in reflected light. Button is Exc. and displays essentially Mint as made. The Dreyfus affair was a divisive political scandal which consumed France in the 1890s. Dreyfus was a young artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was convicted of treason in 1894 and sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having given French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. Dreyfus was sent to Devil's Island in French Guiana and placed in solitary confinement. Two years later evidence was found that identified the actual traitor as French Army Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. High ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence and instead of exoneration, Dreyfus was further accused on the basis of false documents attempting to re-confirm his conviction. Word of the court's framing of Dreyfus and the following cover-up began to spread largely due to the public protestation in a Paris newspaper by writer Emile Zola. Eventually all accusations against Dreyfus were proven to be baseless and following his exoneration he re-joined the French Army in 1906. Button is very likely the sole surviving example.
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