Document of liberty sold for $7-million

Producer Norman Lear and a partner bid online to purchase an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.

©New York Times

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 30, 2000

NEW YORK -- What price liberty? A copy of the Declaration of Independence that was printed in 1776 and discovered behind a $4 flea-market painting in 1989 was sold Thursday for $7.4-million, 23 percent more than Sotheby's highest pre-auction estimate and a record for a copy of the document.

The declaration was bought by television producer Norman Lear and the Internet entrepreneur David Hayden.

The sale represented one of the highest prices paid for a document sold over the Internet. There seem to be no definitive records of online sales, although eBay, the online auction house that sells everything from tiny figurines to souped-up cars to century-old copies of National Geographic magazine, said several months ago that it believed a Picasso had sold for just under $2-million in an online deal last year.

Thursday's final price vaulted a one-item Internet auction past some of the most talked-about traditional auctions of recent years, including the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis sale with the $574,500 humidor and the $442,500 rocking chair, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor auction with the $415,000 mahogany table, and the Marilyn Monroe auction with the $1.15-million dress, the one she wore the night she sang Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

The copy of the declaration that changed hands Thursday had been auctioned once before, also at Sotheby's. That sale, in 1991, was conducted the traditional way, with an auctioneer who pounded a gavel after saying "going, going, gone." The price was $2.42-million, which stood as a record for the declaration until Thursday.

This time, the same auctioneer was in charge, but the bidding was done with computers. The bids were posted on Sotheby's Web site, www.sothebys.com, the moment they were submitted.

Lear, who created shows including All in the Family and Maude, said he and Hayden planned to send the declaration around the country in connection with "a theatrical event that will be unashamedly patriotic." Lear said the traveling show would be produced under the auspices of his nonprofit organization, People for the American Way.

Lear, at his farm in Vermont during the auction, and Hayden, who was on a plane from New York to California, matched the only other bidder in increments of $100,000. Sotheby's, which had required prospective bidders to register by Tuesday, did not identify the loser.

Sotheby's billed the auction as a kind of high-tech, high-value experiment, but it was really only medium tech. The bids for Lear and Hayden were submitted by someone who works for Lear and who was at a computer terminal at Sotheby's, at York Avenue and 72nd Street in Manhattan. The auction opened in the morning with a $4-million bid from Lear and Hayden. The other bidder's first appearance -- a $4.1 million bid -- came two and a half hours later, and two hours after that, Lear and Hayden countered with $4.2 million. The bidding Ping-Ponged between the two sides. At 4:57, three minutes before what was supposed to be the end of the auction, Lear and Hayden raised their bid to $4.6-million. With 52 seconds before the deadline, the other bidder climbed to $5.1-million.

Under Sotheby's online rules, it will not close an auction until 10 minutes have gone by without a bid, and 22 more bids were posted before it ended at 5:47, 10 minutes after Lear and Hayden topped their competitor's final $7.3-million bid. With Sotheby's 10 percent commission, their total came to $8.14-million.

"We had thought we would stop about six because we saw no possibility of its going past six," he said, referring to $6-million. "How to explain it? There is no price on liberty. You've got to take a pill with this, but nonetheless that's the way we were feeling."

The document that Lear and Hayden bought is known as a Dunlap broadside. It was one of 25 copies surviving from the 500 or so run off by a Philadelphia printer named John Dunlap on the night the Continental Congress voted to break away from British rule. Redden said that the printer was rushing -- the ink was still wet when the copy sold Thursday was folded. The first line, "In Congress, July 4, 1776," can be seen in reverse at the bottom of the page.

The Dunlap broadside was the way that word of the colonies' independence was spread. Copies were sent to local officials and military leaders, including General George Washington, who Redden said read his copy to his troops.

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