Declaration of Independence copy sold for $4.4 million in Philadelphia
- It is the second-highest price ever paid at auction for any Declaration copy
- The Declaration copy was ordered up by John Quincy Adams from printer William J Stone two centuries ago
- The auction house said that the house had anticipated far less amount at $500,000 to $800,000
A rare parchment engraving of the Declaration of Independence in the US has been sold for $4.4 million on Thursday to an anonymous buyer at Freeman’s auction house. It is the second-highest price ever paid at auction for any Declaration copy after one was sold for $8.14 million in 2000 auction in New York City, officials at Freeman’s said. The Declaration copy sold in 2000 auction was printed by John Dunlap in Philadelphia on the night of July 4-5, 1776.
The $4.4 million Declaration copy was ordered up by John Quincy Adams from printer William J Stone two centuries ago and it was found in an ancestral Scottish house, reported Pittsburg Post Gazette.
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Darren Winston, the head of Freeman’s books and manuscripts department, said, “From its fairytale-like discovery through to today’s record-breaking auction, it has been both incredibly exciting and a true privilege to be involved with the sale of this significant piece of American history,” quoted Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
The Stone Declaration on Thursday amounted to the highest ever price at auction fetched by an American document printed in the 19th century, Freeman, located on Market Street in Philadelphia, said. The auction house said that the house had anticipated far less amount at $500,000 to $800,000.
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The Declaration copy sold is one of the 52 known survivors on parchment. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported that it was one of the two copies given to signer Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, in 1824. The other copy is in the Maryland Center for History and Culture’s collection, Freeman’s official said.
The $4.4 million copy was passed from Charles Carroll to his granddaughter and and executor Emily Caton and her husband, John MacTavish. It was then subsequently descended in a Scottish family out of public view for 177 years, the auction said.
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