Heritage’s December 2 Auction Dives Deep in the Heart of Ted Lusher’s Revered Collection of Texas History

Earliest and rarest maps, including Genl. Austin’s Map of Texas, and the only known broadside announcing the fall of the Alamo lead this Lone Star-studded historic event DOWNLOAD DIGITAL PRESS KIT DALLAS, Texas (Nov. 14, 2023) — “Some people consider it to be a madness,” Ted Lusher says by way of introducing his voluminous collection of impossibly rare Texas artifacts — maps made by a Texas founding father and other major cartographers , guidebooks published for the earliest émigrés, histories written by those who made and witnessed it. Lusher laughs. “They call it a gentle madness.” Indeed, the size of Lusher’s assemblage has something to do with such an appellation; the rarity, too, as he pursued things no one else even knew existed or might ever become available, such as the first broadside announcing the fall of the Alamo. In the early 1980s, he began his collection simply enough, with a copy of J. Frank Dobie’s 1941 book The Longhorns, about cattle and cowboys — easy to find and relatively inexpensive, too. Lusher would spend the next 40 years accruing hundreds of items, chief among them one of three known copies of Francis Moore Jr.’s 1840 first-edition Map and Description of Texaswith plates and maps, including the first published rendering of the Alamo and Stephen F. Austin’s map of Texas and its adjoining states. When Lusher gets interested in a subject, he goes all in. “Unfortunately, I do,” he says with a laugh. “If there’s any way you can do it, it’s the best way — the only way — to experience the culture, and the culture of Texas piqued my interest.” Lusher began amassing his Texas treasures in 1982 when the Kansas City native moved to Waco before finding his way to Austin. Four decades later, he has decided it’s time to share his collection with other collectors — Texans, he hopes, which is why Dallas-based Heritage will hold on Dec. 2 the Ted Lusher Texas History Collection, Part One Signature ® Auction. There are more than 165 items in this auction, ranging from maps to manuscripts, which Lusher felt best told the story of Texas — its land, its people, their origins. The event counts among its centerpieces Moore’s 1840 Map and Description of Texas, which was written by Houston’s second mayor and served as the first guidebook for newcomers to the fledgling Republic of Texas (which wouldn’t become a state for another five years); Thomas Gay’s March 1836 broadside announcing the fall of the Alamo; and Charles William Pressler and A.B. Langermann’s 1879 Map of the State of Texas, which is among the most significant maps of Texas ever printed and one of the rarest, as there are but three known copies, with this the sole copy in a private collection. This auction also features a standalone example of Stephen F. Austin’s exceedingly scarce 1846 Map of Texas, the final edition of the first broadly accurate map of Texas ever published. Austin’s hand-colored engraved folding map became among the most iconic images of the state ever published. But few will ever have the opportunity to see, much less own, this example. The Alamo, of course, looms large in Lusher’s collection, and among the most significant offerings is Antonio López de Santa Anna’s March 16, 1836, Viva la Patria, in which the then-president tells the Minister of War their army has taken the Alamo. “Victory lays with the Mexican Army,” he wrote, “and as of eight o’clock in the morning, it has just managed to achieve the most complete and glorious victory that will forever be remembered.” But here, too, are the first-hand accounts of newcomers to the “Big Wonderful Thing” about which Stephen Harrigan wrote in his essential history of Texas. Among the rarest is this presentation copy in its original wrappers of Frédéric Leclerc’s 1840 Le Texas et Sa Révolution — a young French doctor’s account of encountering the nascent republic in the late 1830s. The work is so impossible to find that this is one of only three copies to appear at auction in the last four decades. Lusher, CEO and Chairman of Austin-based Sell-Thru Services, Inc., was born in Kansas City and, as a child, spent time around its fabled stockyards — the closest he got to something approximating Texas until he moved to Waco in the early 1980s while working for candy-maker Mars, Incorporated. Upon his arrival, he thought Texas was mostly the Alamo, cattle and the law-enforcing Texas Rangers — “the iconic things,” in other words. “But I was also in a position to analyze things, to find the real story — or part of the real story — which was the blending of the cultures in Texas,” Lusher says. “When we first came to Texas, I started to get interested in its history. I went back to the early heroes and the rugged individualists: James Bowie, Davy Crockett, the Rangers. I started collecting books, maps — I was a geography major in college — and manuscripts and a lot of early Texas art, which I displayed in our Austin offices. “Then it evolved: I began zeroing in on books that were first-hand eyewitnesses to events, whether it was the fall of the Alamo, the war with Mexico, the early cattle drive and those things. I became interested in the first recordings of these events. The collection isn’t just about the hard materials but the experience of assembling it, understanding it and the people you meet along the way. They create the community and make it interesting. We have a unique and diversified community in Texas, and this collection reflects that.” In time, Lusher joined the boards of the Texas State Historical Association and the Briscoe Western Art Museum and served on the advisory board of Texas A&M Press. He and his wife Sharon also loaned much of their collection to the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. He now says that parting with his collection is “very difficult,” as the materials have become akin to “old friends.” But he also recognizes he can be a caretaker for only so long, which is why he’s making the material available at auction and hopes that most, if not all, of it will remain in his adopted home state. “I feel fortunate to be here and to be able to do this,” Lusher says. “It has been a pleasure. As I like to say, the enjoyment was all mine.” Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world's largest collectibles auctioneer. Heritage maintains offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. Heritage also enjoys the highest Online traffic and dollar volume of any auction house on earth (source: SimilarWeb and Hiscox Report). The Internet's most popular auction-house website, HA.com, has more than 1,750,000 registered bidder-members and searchable free archives of 6,000,000 past auction records with prices realized, descriptions and enlargeable photos. Reproduction rights routinely granted to media for photo credit. For breaking stories, follow us: HA.com/Facebook and HA.com/Twitter . Link to this release or view prior press releases . Hi-Res images available: Robert Wilonsky, VP Public Relations and Communications 214-409-1887 or RobertW@HA.com