President Roosevelt’s personally-owned and -used black folding travel comb, measuring 5.25″ long when opened, featuring wonderful scenes in relief on both sides of the handle, one showing a stagecoach and the other a boxing match. The manufacturer or artist is identified below the stagecoach as “Slack.” Includes a letter of provenance on a White House card from Lillian Rogers Parks, who was a best selling author as well as housekeeper and seamstress at the White House for over 30 years, from President Hoover through President Eisenhower. In full: “The carved horn comb, with a stage coach and team on one side and boxers in the ring on the other, was owned and used by Theodore Roosevelt. My Mother, Maggie Rogers, began her White House 30-year career in 1909. The comb was given to her by Chief Usher, Ike Hoover, who worked for Theodore Roosevelt and several other Presidents.” An exceptional personal piece as both scenes capture the rough-and-tumble, hypermasculine qualities that Roosevelt’s name conjures.
