Found! - 26th Copy of the American Declaration of Independence

I was catching up on the news this morning and learned that another copy of the Declaration of Independence has been found in the British National Archives. I can almost feel the excitement the finder must have felt to come upon such a historic document.

What manner of miracle is this that the finding of this wonderful document is announced only two days before America celebrates her 233rd birthday.

An unidentified researcher was doing unrelated research when the document was discovered in some late 18th century files in the British National Archives.  While it seems unlikely this particular document will ever be sold, the last print found was auctioned off in 2000 for a cool $8.14 million dollars.

These documents are known as Dunlap Broadsides and named after the Philadelphia printer John Dunlap who was commissioned to print them. A broadside for this purpose is basically a large sheet of paper much like what we call a poster today. Many of these broadsides, reflecting a rush to get them distributed, have imperfections such as reversed watermarks, misplaced punctuations and dark creases that look like the posters were folded before the ink dried.

Archive spokeswoman Katrina McClintok said the document was found months ago but the find had not been announced until it had been “extracted and catalogued”.

Here’s a picture in case you’ve never seen one.

Tweet This Post