Personal Finance: Marks of distinction

collect to invest

It is 1914 in Petrograd. Amid guttering candles, the mad monk Rasputin is holding a seance with his followers in a private house. Suddenly, in the gloom, his eyes flash. He scribbles a note and passes it to the host. The note reads: "Bright light does not come from dark coffers."

A dark thought that will give nightmares unless it is burned. But the note has survived. You can buy it for an estimated pounds 3,000-pounds 4,000 at Sotheby's sale of a big private collection of autograph letters on Tuesday (10.30am).

Is it worth paying that much for a scrap of paper? Well, the note comes with a written authentication by the host, Mahivaky - a revelation to some historians who still believe that Rasputin was illiterate. It is a great rarity.

Apart from that, its value lies both in Rasputin's name - he is likely to remain one of history's big bogeymen for generations to come - and in the fascinating content of the note. This is no mere reply to an invitation to tea.

On the minus side, the note is written in Russian and has no immediate appeal to English speakers. You would have to give your friends a mini- lecture, showing them Sotheby's catalogue and Mahivaky's testimony in order to impress them. And Russian autograph history is a narrow field. Not many people collect it, so prices across the board are not likely to take off.

Fame, content, rarity - these are the main considerations when contemplating buying, autograph letters and signed photographs for investment.

Put simply, value is largely determined by news value (good journalists should make good investors). For example, a signed photograph of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, is worth $450 (pounds 280) to collectors, while one signed by the second man on the moon - who was he, now? Ah, yes, Buzz Aldrin - is worth only $270 (pounds 170).

Most important of all: paper is being made obsolete by information technology. Few of today's up-coming historical and literary figures start their day by penning a score of letters - so the value of those that survive is bound to rise. A run-of-the-mill letter by gloomy Gladstone can still be had for around pounds 75 and one by dashing Disraeli for pounds 300. (Disraeli wrote fewer letters, so his have an added rarity value.)

Tuesday's sale consists of 488 lots from the collection of the Hollywood film director George Cosmatos and his late wife, Birgita. Cosmatos sums up what must be the enduring appeal of manuscripts as opposed to computer printouts: "If we touched a letter or a document written by an historical figure, it was though a tiny part of their life would become ours by osmosis through our fingertips. We felt that through the collection we caught glimpses of thousands of secret worlds."

The sale is likely to be a landmark, fixing prices for the next couple of years. It ranges widely from autographs by European literary and musical figures to those of lesser-known explorers, such as Sir Samuel Baker, whose letter of 1879 deploring the British occupation of Cyprus, estimated pounds 1,200-pounds 1,500, will have more appeal to public than private collections.

The collection, expected to raise pounds 400,000, might have fetched more in New York or Los Angeles, but the European material, and Cosmatos's long association with Sotheby's London - where he bought heavily in the Eighties, have brought it here. Rich Americans can buy by telephone but they cannot view lots by telephone and this will dampen bidding somewhat. Also, Sotheby's has made sure not to over-egg estimates - as befits a big load of any collectable landing in the market in one go.

This could be the making of the market for autograph musical quotations - those few bars of favourite tunes dashed off by composers for admirers. They are much rarer than their letters. Cosmatos specialised in them. The star turn is Puccini's hand-drawn stave with a snatch of Tosca's duet with Cavaradossi in Act I of Tosca: pounds 1,000 - pounds 1,500. But there is also Cole Porter's black-ink Night and Day (pounds l,500-pounds 2,000), which must be "our tune" for countless couples - some of them with money to spend.

Then there are the signed photographs. Ten years ago, these were looked down on because of their lack of content. Mere name hunting was frowned on. But they have now acquired cross-over value due to the increased interest in the history of photography.

A carte-de-visite full-length photograph of Dickens - they are rarer than you might think - is estimated pounds 3,000-pounds 3,500 in the sale. The fact that it is signed on both sides has - unaccountably, to me, at any rate -- added a grand or two to its value. The same photograph was bought by Cosmatos for $6,325 (pounds 4,000) in another landmark sale at Christie's East in New York in April 1996. This sale, of another private collection, put signed photographs on the map. A big, 13in by 10in signed photograph of the composer Mahler - a wonderful image - made a whopping $22,633 (pounds 14,000). In the same sale, a photograph signed by the youthful Churchill in 1905 made $3,450 (pounds 2,000).

Churchill is in big demand in the United States - as are all World War II autographs. Veterans of the war are at an age when their families have fled the coop and many have time and money to collect. In the forthcoming sale, a photograph of Field Marshal Montgomery receiving the German surrender at Luneberg Heath on 4 May 1945, signed by him at a later date, is estimated pounds 800-pounds l,200.

And are autographs by French Impressionists underpriced? The market for their paintings and the market for their autographs probably do not influence one another. But a letter by Camille Pissarro in which he prices his paintings at 1,000-2,000 francs - a thousand times less than they fetched following his death in 1903 - must be a snip at an estimated pounds 600-pounds 800.

Beware of ephemeral ephemera. In the fame game, the names of film stars and sportsmen are much less likely to hold their value than those of statesmen and literary-artistic figures - even after you have sifted out the Auto- pen signatures doled out to film fans.

Here are some cautionary examples: Jane Russell's signed photograph, now worth $25 (pounds 15), was worth pounds 30-pounds 40 during her heyday in the Fifties. One signed by Mary Pickford, "the world's sweetheart" in the Thirties, is worth pounds 35. Arthur Askey, the Forties radio comic: a pitiful pounds l.

Sotheby's, 34-35 New Bond St, London WI (0171-293 5000).