"Admit Bearer to My Bench" - Collecting Vice President's Gallery Passes to the U.S. Senate Chamber

A Gerald Ford Vice President's Gallery Pass, circa 1974. Image Credit: Collection of the Author.  Generally, the most common, easily obtainable Vice President's Gallery passes to the U.S. Senate Chamber stem from the early-1960s to early-1980s time period. For instance, passes issued by Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, and Walter Mondale are some of the most commonly available on the collectors market. At any given time, passes from Lyndon Johnson and Nelson Rockefeller may not be available in as great a quantity as these other examples, but they are fairly common as well. However, one notable exception regarding rarity in this time frame are passes that were issued by Gerald Ford. Even though they are fairly modern (only a little over 50 years old), they are much more difficult to track down in the current collector's market. What accounts for this rarity? There are likely a few reasons. Gerald Ford came into the vice presidency under extraordinary circumstances - the first i...

A Reporter's Gallery Pass to the U.S. Senate Chamber signed by Vice President Schuyler Colfax in December 1872. Image Credit: Collection of the Author.  As will be discussed in future posts, the modern Vice President's Gallery Pass to the U.S. Senate Chamber is a historical artifact that has evolved through multiple iterations across several decades. This naturally begs the question of what is the earliest known forerunner of this pass? Although more research is needed to gain a full contextual understanding, a prime candidate for this accolade is this December 1872 pass to the Reporter's Gallery, signed by Vice President Schuyler Colfax. The pass was issued to Edmund J. Hudson (1848-1921), a Templeton, Massachusetts native who was a longtime Washington-based correspondent for the Boston Herald . It is noteworthy in that it predates Reserved Gallery passes to the U.S. Senate Chamber by over 20 years.   While this incredibly rare item is certainly one of the oldest, standa...

An LBJ-signed (autopen) President's Gallery Pass to the U.S. Senate Chamber, Image Credit: Collection of the Author.  One of the more curious vice presidential-signed U.S. Senate Gallery passes is not vice presidential at all. Rather, it is a PRESIDENT'S GALLERY pass! To that, one could understandably respond, "wait a minute - I didn't know that the U.S. Senate Chamber had a President's Gallery!" And it more or less does not. However, this pass stems from a unique period of time and circumstances that has been obscured to a degree by the fog of time. Research is currently underway to ascertain the full story of how this pass came about, but thanks to guidance from the U.S. Senate Curator's Office and the LBJ Presidential Library, we already have a pretty good idea as to why it was created. The story of this pass dates back to 22 November 1963, when Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency following the Kennedy assassination. As the fabled "Master of t...

Pass to the Reserved Gallery of the U.S. Senate Chamber - signed by Vice President Thomas R. Marshall (1917). Image Credit: Collection of the Author. After observing the collector's market in this area for the last several months, I wanted to provide some initial thoughts on the rarity of Vice Presidential-signed U.S. Senate Chamber gallery passes of any sort (ranging from the earliest reporter's passes in the 19th century to the Vice President's Gallery passes in the later 20th century and beyond). I emphasize the word initial , as this assessment will continue to evolve as we monitor what passes continue to surface in museums, private collections, and in the marketplace. As will be discussed further in future posts, standardized VPOTUS-signed passes to the U.S. Senate Chamber of any sort did not begin to materialize until at least the early 1870s (the oldest one in my collection dates to 1872). Note that these early examples were not passes to the Vice President's Gal...

Flag of the Vice President of the United States - Image Credit: Wikipedia Commons When people first hear that I collect Vice President's gallery passes to the U.S. Senate Chamber, they typically respond with genuine interest - though with a slight undertone of thinking, "that's an oddly specific sort of thing to collect." And it is! As such, I thought it would be helpful to readers to provide some background on what got me into this subfield of American political memorabilia collecting. Overall, as a historian who specializes in several aspects of American history, I have long been fascinated with studying Members of Congress, Presidents, Vice Presidents, and other noteworthy political figures. I have also long been fascinated by American political ephemera - especially Congressional Gallery Passes. I remember visiting the U.S. Capitol Building as a teenager and first seeing these elegant, ornately designed passes - thinking they were a "Golden Ticket" of so...

Vice President Dan Quayle U.S. Senate Chamber Pass, ca. 1989 - Image Credit: Collection of the Author.  "Admit Bearer to My Bench" (named after a note that former Vice President Thomas R. Marshall wrote on the back of one of his VPOTUS passes in 1917) is intended to serve as a fun and informative online resource for those who are interested in learning about the fascinating history and evolution of Vice President's gallery passes to the U.S. Senate Chamber. In use since at least the late 19th century, these passes (including the one here from former Vice President Dan Quayle's tenure from 1989-1993) have gone through a series of evolutions - changing dramatically in appearance and scope over the decades. However, they have always served the central purpose of providing access to a special section of the U.S. Senate gallery for friends and VIP guests of the Vice President. Interestingly, some of these passes are relatively easy to find in today's collectors' ma...