Featured An interesting piece of American Eagle Assoc. history [?]

Boy, that's a tricky one.

With something like this (completely not an expert) I look for clues about condition, the quality of the framing, etc.

Although condition overall seems very good, it is a little dirty on the edges, almost looks like it was handled a bit. (Last photo)

So might ask myself, would someone frame a soiled reproduction? Or if this was sold as a framed reproduction, would it have that?

On the other end, if shaded coloring or whatever you call this effect, did not exist, certainly rules out original.

As far as evaluation, haven't a clue where you could go. Sometimes antique book seller's are good with something like this.

 

Quality frame shops usually have a trained person on staff who has taken archival preservation classes and they know a lot about paper. Call around.

 

Eveything is too good to be 1850s printing. Letterpress used a lot of pressure and if hand picked iis was never perfectly straight. This looks like some thing a paper company would produce to showcase paper capabilities ie embossing without breaking.

 

No idea about the authenticity of the ticket itself, but I'm inclined to think the event did take place. The book that bakersgma linked to has some other information too... 'American Eagle Association' is also referred to as 'American Eagle Chapter' and 'American Eagle, No. 8', all in Paterson, NJ. It was one of many chapters belonging to the 'Order of United Americans' (O.U.A.). I also found some of the names associated with it too.

Congress Hall was a hotel in Paterson, but it seems to have burned down. It was on 'Main Street'.

I'd give you links, but I spent a very happy hour hopping from page to page and got completely lost! Fascinating stuff! I used the following site for some of it (free and very useful for American newspapers of the time): https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

As for the colour of the ink on the ticket, is it possible that it wasn't originally this colour/shade, but has faded this way? Maybe it was a later printing sample that referenced a real event?

 

Batman, ur beautiful! Thanks!
Most everything I found in this estate is fascinating and going to take me a long time to sort through, and figure out. I so appreciate the help!

 

Researching stuff is fun, isn't it? Takes time though, but you learn so much. I'm waiting for a bundle of photos/papers to arrive that I just bought on eBay and know they'll keep me quiet and out of trouble for the next few weeks. Haha!