Joseph Mikulec's Autograph Album
Croatian-born Josef Mikulec left home to travel the world before his 20th birthday in 1898. At some point in Italy, he saw a man carrying an autograph book to document his journeys. Beginning in 1911, Mikulec — dubbed The World Traveler by The New York Times — began gathering autographs and mementos himself, using them to fill in the pages of book after book, which have since been bound together to create an enormous 11" x 16" x 10" tome. It contains mementos from at least 33 countries in at least 23 languages and carries signatures and writings from a slew of dignitaries, including those of six U.S. presidents, two monarchs and a prime minister of Great Britain, the president of China, leaders of Japan, Australia, India, and Singapore, prime ministers of Canada, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie, it's a fascinating piece of history and is now being offered for sale by the Raab Collection.
