I can imagine many things ar thrown out as junk. And in some cases you might sell them cheap to clean out your house. But there are some things I’d assume people might recognize. Say the Deceleration of Independence…
A rare, 184-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a Nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2.48 purchase price.
Michael Sparks, a music equipment technician, is selling the document in an auction March 22nd at Raynors’ Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina. The opening bid is $125,000 and appraisers have estimated it could sell for nearly twice that.
Sparks found his bargain last March while browsing at Music City Thrift Shop in Nashville. When he asked the price on a yellowed, shellacked, rolled-up document, the clerk marked it at $2.48.
It turned out to be an “official copy” of the Declaration of Independence — one of 200 commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820.
He didn’t know he had such a valuable piece until doing some online research and then having appraisers at Raynors’ offer an opinion.
Damn. When you hear about these things it makes you want to run out to the local antique store and hope to buy the next lost Picasso. But instead these are generally found in “unusual” places, like local thrift shops, estate sales, and local garage sales. And quite often they don’t know what they have until later.
What they don’t say in the article is how many of the original 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence there are out there. According to one site, of the 150 to 200 Dunlap Broadsides* printed, only 25 remain. So being number 26 would definitely make it worth a lot more.
* Named after the printer who printed them.
Tags: History, Interesting, Irony, News
