New York – A rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence was sold over
the Web for $8.14 million to a television producer Norman Lear and Internet
entrepreneur David Hayden. According to Sotheby’s auction house, the sale on
its Web site brought the highest price for any item ever sold on the
Internet and for any American historical document.
Norman Lear is know for productions of such shows as All in the Family and
Maude. His collegue, an Internet entrepreneur David Hayden plans to send the
document on a national tour under the auspices of Lear’s liberal advocacy
group, People for the American Way.
An amateur collector found the document in 1989 hidden behind a torn
painting, which he bought for $4 at an Adamstown, Pa., flea market. The
collector had initially bought the torn painting because he wanted the
frame.
In 1991, Sotheby’s sold it at auction for a then-record $2.4 million to
Thursday’s seller: Visual Equities, a fine-art investment firm in Atlanta.
It failed to sell at auction in 1993.
Lear said that he had learned about the auction last week. He said he went
to view the document at Sotheby’s and wept when he read the opening lines of
the declaration, then enlisted Hayden’s help in obtaining it.
Hayden, the founder of Critical Path, an Internet messaging service, and
Lear faced off with another would-be buyer, posting 29 separate bids that
began at $4 million and ended at $7.4 million. Sotheby’s commission brought
the price to $8.14 million.
The copy was produced by John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer, the night of
July 4, 1776. It is one of 25 that survive from the hundreds that were
printed and sent to the 13 colonies proclaiming their independence from
Great Britain. All but four of the surviving copies are in museums or public
institutions.
