Prof J Woodman Hart - Exhibition of the Whole World, 1850's, Broadway, New York

VAMhead

I took in a couple of notes from the 1850's that appear to be a type of sweepstakes/lottery venture by an individual named "Prof J Woodman Hart". I can find no information on this individual apart from some ads he ran in newspapers at the time.

Has anyone seen one of these before? I have attached images of one of the notes. Thank you!

Tookybandit

Very cool! May want to check with the auction houses. Maybe they've sold an example before?

sellitstore

Yes, it's a lottery ticket/scam.

There are many different ones. This one is nicely illustrated and I haven't seen it before. It does have some condition issues.

The problem may be that the collector is rarer than the piece and the piece is rare.

VAMhead

Thank you both for taking the time to comment. It's just one that intrigues me. I'd enjoy finding a paragraph or two somewhere on this guy or his "business venture", but, alas, that information may be gone for good.

sellitstore

Do a search on "J Woodman Hart" on this site:
fultonhistory.com/fulton.html
and you will find his newspaper advertisements which fully describe this scheme.

Let me tell you how this probably ended.

Hart never sold the 300,000 tickets at $1 and never had the drawing. But he kept whatever money that he did acquire selling tickets and disappeared.

These unofficial lotteries skirted the law and were popular in the US from the mid to late 19th century. Some of them used currency lookalikes to advertise their drawings.

VAMhead

I suppose it's logical, then, that it's difficult to find information on this guy apart from his advertisements.

Thanks for the link and the information.