Robert Peary SIGNED AUTOGRAPHED Card - Century Club Stationary - North Pole

Description

Card signed in pencil by famed explorer Robert Peary on Century Club card. Heavier stock. 4.75 by 3.9 inches. Ghosts of glue marks to top corners of rear. Recipient of signature (Edmund Zalinski) has written "Arctic Explorer E.K.Z." in pen along bottom edge. Peary also appears to have written his address at the time below his signature.
Recipient was Captain Edmund Zalinski, born in Poland in 1849, emigrated to America in 1853, and joined the Union Army in 1864 as a teenager. He went on to a long career as a military engineer and inventor, most notably developing the pneumatic dynamite torpedo-gun (called the Zalinski gun). This letter comes from a large archive of material received by Zalinski around the time of the Spanish-American war which he then presented to Gertrude Whiting for her autograph collection.