NEW YORK -- A first printing of the Declaration of Independence -- found inside a torn landscape painting bought for $4 at a flea market -- was sold at auction for $2.42 million, more than twice the pre-sale estimate of its value.
The 215-year-old document, in almost perfect condition, was bought Thursday at Sotheby's gallery by Donald Scheer of Atlanta, head of Visual Equities Inc., which has an art collection but no Americana. He indicated the purchase would be exhibited at some time in the future.
Asked why he bought the Declaration printing, one of 24 known to exist, he replied: 'These words are living words, as alive today as they were when they were penned by Thomas Jefferson. These are the words that knocked down the Berlin Wall and freed the slaves.'
The document, printed the same day the Declaration was signed on July 4, 1776, was consigned to Sotheby's by a Philadelphia investment specialist who found it folded behind a painting of a country scene he bought for $4 at a flea market last summer.
He said he bought the painting because he liked the frame but later threw both painting and frame away, keeping the document.
The auction house earlier this year confirmed the printed broadsheet as authentic and one of the three finest known, as crisp as it was on the evening it was printed by John Dunlap to carry the news of America's independence to the people of the 13 colonies. Sotheby's put an estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million on the lot.
Sotheby's sold another copy in January 1990 for about $1.6 million. All but two of the previously recorded copies of the Declaration are now held by institutions.
Bidding started at $400,000 and shot up quickly to more than $2 million, with Seth Kaller, an Asbury, N. J., book dealer as the underbidder. Earlier, Kaller had paid $29,700 for a 1945 telegram to Lt. Kay Summersby from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in which the allied commander announced the end of the war in Europe to his driver and reputed lover.
Other top prices in the $5.2 million sale of 248 lots were:
--$440,000 for the first Latin edition of Columbus's letter to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella announcing the discovery of the New World, printed in Rome in 1493. It wa purchased by William Reese, a New Haven, Conn., dealer.
--$231,000 for a rare 1774 printed pamphlet relating to the Declaration of Independence, 'A Summary View of the Rights of British America,' by Thomas Jefferson. It was bought by an unidentified bidder.
--$143,000 for a leaf from a school sum book kept by Abraham Lincoln, dated 1824 and thus the earliest surviving autograph manuscript by the president-to-be. It was bought by Ralph Newman, a Chicago dealer.
Another Eisenhower-Summersby item, an affectionate note written by the general toward the end of World War II, was obtained by Forbes Magazine for its collection of presidential memorabilia for $12,100.
