Alexander Graham Bell letter, drawing get $92,000

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Alexander Graham Bell letter, drawing get $92,000

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Alexander Graham Bells letter and drawing has been sold for more than $92,000 at an auction.

20 January,2012 02:54 am

An 1878 letter from Alexander Graham Bell to his parents that includes rare and elaborate drawings of the telephone he invented has sold for more than $92,000, an auctioneer said Thursday.The letter instructs the Scotland-born Bells parents on how to ground the telephone to avoid harm from lightning strikes. He instructs them to run a sturdy copper wire from their house to the duck pond and bury it there.If you have a good connection with a permanently moist stratum of earth, you need never fear lightning and your posts will be safe, Bell wrote.The letter was written two years after Bell obtained the patent on the telephone and made his first call to his assistant, Thomas Watson.Bidding on the letter offered by RRAuction began in December and ended Wednesday, with the top bid coming in at $92,856.RRAuction Vice President Bobby Livingston wouldnt name the top bidder, but he described him as a prominent document collector in Texas who has an eye for the best stuff.Livingston said the letter came from an archive kept by an associate of Bells. He said the letter is particularly valuable because of Bells detailed discussion and drawings.Youre not going to see a better Alexander Graham Bell on the market, Livingston said.Bell and his family moved to North America in 1870 and settled in Canada. Bell moved to Boston the following year, where he taught the deaf and became a professor at Boston University.