A month ago, I noticed an eBay auction selling, “John Wilkes Booth’s Diary National Treasure 2 Prop Replica“. I decided to contact the seller to ask about it. I learned that the piece was a handmade creation by an Italian replica prop maker. The creator’s name is Pasquale Marsella and he has an entire website showing his self-created prop replicas for his favorite move series, Indiana Jones. His cinematic interests are multifaceted and he also very much enjoys the National Treasure movies. Due to this he meticulously replicated items from that movie series such as the President’s Book of Secrets and Booth’s diary. After e-mailing for a bit, I inquired with him how many diaries he had for sale. Mr. Marsella told me he still had about 10 -15 completed leather covers in his possession, the interiors of which still needed to be completed. Up until now he was just selling them to other prop collectors for their National Treasure collections. However, the detail is so fine and the craftsmanship is so good, I told him he was missing out on a whole other market: Lincoln assassination researchers and collectors.
Over the past month, Mr. Marsella and I have been working together to tweak and adjust his original design. As stated, his original product was a replica of a replica. It was very good at a glance, but details like the interior pages themselves were not the same as the original Booth diary. Using John Wilkes Booth’s FBI file and images of the diary the Secret Service took of it in the 1970’s, Mr. Marsella and I have been able to duplicate the interior of the diary exactly. The written pages are now in Booth’s handwriting, and the diary has the exact number of present and missing pages as the original. I know that Mr. Marsella is very proud of his new design and is happy to offer his hand-made diaries to readers of this blog at a generously discounted rate.
Remember, these diaries are all hand-made by Mr. Marsella, with hand tooled leather and printed pages to match the interior of Booth’s diary exactly. The diaries will be aged to replicate the original diary housed at Ford’s Theatre.
In addition to a remarkable replica of Booth’s diary, Mr. Marsella is also throwing in copies of the CDVs of Booth’s ladies found inside the diary and a replica map that was used at the trial of the conspirators.
Mr. Marsella is offering all of these replicas; the diary, CDVs, and map, for the cost of $400 plus $25 shipping. I truly believe the workmanship is worth every penny and the rarity of a good replica makes it a great deal. For comparison, it would cost you $2,500 to purchase a replica diary from the original propmaster on National Treasure 2 and this pricey version would not be as exact as the one Mr. Marsella has created.
For those of you out there who are interested in buying your own replica John Wilkes Booth diary please email me at: boothiebarn (at) gmail (dot) com. Update: Pasquale has no more John Wilkes Booth diaries for sale and will not be making any more. Thank you all for supporting his wonderful creations. From there I’ll send you instructions on how to send Mr. Marsella payment. Please note that Mr. Marsella needs 25 days after payment is received to age and assemble the diary properly.
If it helps convince you, I have an order in for a diary as does the Surratt House Museum which will be putting the replica on display.
If you have any questions for me, or questions I can pass along to Mr. Marsella, please feel free to ask them in the comments below.
LincolnConspirators.com 
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Hi Dave —
Thank you for your terrific resource on Booth and everything to do with the Conspiracy. I’m pleased to say that I own one of Pasquale’s wonderful reproductions and I can quite honestly say that besides being a great replica, Pasquale is a terrific fellow.
I would encourage anyone interested to contact Pasquale and place an order, they will be thrilled..
Warm regards
MARK
Mark,
Working with Pasquale this last month has definitely proven to me that he is a true artist. I have hammered his inbox with pictures and details regarding the original diary, and he has graciously and diligently worked to improve his design.
While no replica of the Booth diary could ever be 100% exact, I doubt anyone could reach Pasquale’s level of excellence. I am very much looking forward to receiving my diary.
Thanks for commenting!
Dave Taylor
I need to see close-ups of the pages containing Booth’s handwritten escape entries in order to decide whether to raise money or rob a bank in order to buy one of these. Your blog only shows one page of them and I can’t zoom in close enough. Also, the color of the lower right corner of that page of writing looks very gray, unlike the rest of the page.
Richard,
I’ll attach a picture of one of the pages with Booth’s handwriting shortly. The reason for the slight darkening is due to the fact that the original source pictures I sent Pasquale (the 1970’s Secret Service pics) had to be adjusted and the contrast increased in order for the faint pencil stokes to be printed properly.
Here’s one of the pages from Mr. Marsella’s diary showing Booth’s handwriting. This was taken before the page was cut, bound, and aged, mind you:
Here is the original source image used that shows the soiling on the original diary that caused the darkening when the contrast was increased:
Is the reproduction diary still for sale? If so, how much & where can it be purchased?
Dave,
Thanks for your supervision of this. My order is in.
Art
Thanks, Art. I’m confident you’ll enjoy the final product.
Hi Dave!
I’m writing this comment to thanks you for all your support for this project. You are a real perfectionist and I’m sure that people have to thanks you for this diary! Without your help this production was impossible!
Thanks to you and all followers of BoothieBarn!
You’re a true artist, Pasquale. Thank you so much for all of your hard work on this. If I ever think of any other item I would like a replica of, I know I’ll contact you first.
I agree with you Dave, Mr. Marsella is a true artist. I will definitely share this post on my Spirits of Tudor Hall Facebook page.
Thanks for the additional advertising, Carolyn. Think Tudor Hall might want one?
Hi Dave,
I don’t think they would order one. There are still some old school folks over there in my opinion who are still anti JWB and don’t like his name being mentioned. However when I took over as admin for the Spirits of Tudor Hall Facebook page, my goal I hope was to give all family members a mention including JWB. I would love to purchase one but at this time can’t do so for financial reason. Mr Marsella has done a fine job and would like continue supporting his work including posting on our Facebook page.
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Must be nice as I never saw the original at Ford’s last week. Everything seems to be hidden. And then
to find out they were having an afternoon performance and nothing was available to be seen and I’ve
never seen a more rowdy Smithsonian crowd. I thought March would be off season, but everyplace
was packed.
Anthony,
I feel your pain. Sadly you picked one of the worst times of the year to go. I heard many NPS Rangers say how they have never seen the place so busy than a couple weeks ago. It coincided with Spring Break for many people, class field trips for others, and the Cherry Blossom festival which was a bit if a busy until the blossoms opened up. My parents and I spent an hour in line just to get tickets to get into Ford’s, which I have never had to do before. Then we had to waiting another half hour before our tickets allowed us in. Luckily we booked it over to Petersen house when the One Destiny play was over otherwise it would have been another LONG wait in that line. Don’t be too discouraged, it was just a nightmare of a time that week.
I would love to see Tudor Hall, but didn’t have directions and probably was far off the beaten path as we had such little time.
Hi Anthony,
The 2013 Season of Tudor Hall Tours started today, Sunday, April 7. The next tour date this month is April 21. We will be open for tours 2x each month until Nov. For more information or to check out additional tour dates, please call 443-619-0008 or SpiritsOfTudorHall@gmail.com
You can also visit our blog by clicking on this link: http://ow.ly/jLrjb
Are these still available for purchase?
Yes it is avaiable. Contact me by email
Wow, you’re fast Pasquale! How’s the diary business been?
Hi Dave! Thanks! Eheheh, yes I’m fast 😉
All is good in Italy 😉
Just to remind everyone, not only is Pasquale the artist behind these truly remarkable Booth diaries, but he also an immensely gifted prop maker. Check out some of his creations here:
http://www.propmoviestudios.com/
and here:
http://www.sarednabworldprops.com/eng/index.html
Thanks Dave! You are always a great gentleman!
I think so, Lilly. I thought I saw Pasquale had put another one up on eBay not too long ago. I’ll e-mail him and ask him to comment.
Dave
Not sure that I can afford one at this time, but it is REALLY amazing! I’ve been fascinated by the conspiracy, Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth for a long time. My friends get tired of hearing me talk about all the conspirators and the whole plot all the time haha. Great website! I was excited to find it
You are most welcome 😉
Lilly,
If you want to go down the rabbit hole even more, I recommend joining the Surratt Society. Their monthly newsletter, The Surratt Courier, is full of articles about Civil War America and the Lincoln assassination.
You also might enjoy Roger Norton’s Lincoln Discussion Symposium – a forum for all things Lincoln. There’s a strong collection of assassination people there including myself. Check it out: http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/index.php
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Posting this on all pages pertaining to the Booth diary replicas:
Waiting on pins and needles for my Booth diary! Pasquale asked me to send folks to him if they want a diary and he can make them now. I thought I was out of luck to get one. Happy to be proven wrong!