IN HONOR OF INDEPENDENCE DAY, A LOOK BACK AT RELATED ITEMS FROM THE HERITAGE ARCHIVES
On July 2, 1776, after the Continental Congress voted to break free from Great Britain’s rule, John Adams predicted that the date would be celebrated for generations to come with “Pomp and Parade … Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.” Adams was only partly right, of course. For nearly 250 years, Americans have celebrated their nation’s independence with all the activities Adams envisioned, but they do it on July 4 instead, in honor of the day the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House and adopted the Declaration of Independence, officially declaring the 13 American colonies a new nation. Though Independence Day celebrations have been a tradition since the 18th century, Congress didn’t make the date a federal holiday until 1870. To kick-start this year’s July Fourth festivities, we combed the Heritage archives for related collectibles.
AS THE OFFICIAL printer to Congress, John Dunlap spent the evening of July 4, 1776, setting a manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence in type. As copies of Dunlap’s first printing were distributed throughout the 13 colonies, they were also used as copy texts for local printers, who produced their own broadside editions. These were printed in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and South Carolina. This copy, the first broadside edition of the Declaration printed in Massachusetts, realized $2,895,000 in a July 2023 Heritage auction.
MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTOR CARL Przyborowski reached the pinnacle of American autograph collecting when he completed his set of signers of the Declaration of Independence. Only 40 or so complete collections of signers of the Declaration exist, and most of those are housed in institutions or public libraries. Przyborowski’s collection includes manuscript material from all 56 men who signed their names to the most famous document in American history, as well as two items from Secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson and framer of the Declaration of Independence Robert Livingston. The collection sold for $1,395,000 in a June 2022 Heritage auction.
COMMISSIONED IN CELEBRATION of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Ben Franklin’s Sesquicentennial by Norman Rockwell graced the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1926. The work’s popularity led to its reproduction on the cover of the July 4, 1976, Chicago Tribune Magazine, kicking off the country’s bicentennial year, and to its inclusion in 12 major exhibitions nationwide since the early 1970s. The painting, which realized $762,500 in a May 2018 Heritage auction, was Rockwell’s only cover illustration to feature a Founding Father.
AS EVIDENCED BY his iconic, recurring New Year’s baby created exclusively for The Saturday Evening Post, Joseph Christian Leyendecker had a knack for producing poignant, whimsical works capturing the antics of children. To many collectors and historians, in fact, the artist’s scenes of children are some of the finest of his entire body of work. In Fourth of July, created for the July 1, 1911, cover of The Saturday Evening Post, Leyendecker commemorated the holiday not with an image of a Founding Father but with a mischievous young boy pranking an oblivious policeman with a firecracker. The painting sold for $275,000 in a May 2023 Heritage auction.
THE U.S. MINT’S tribute to the American bicentennial in 1976 was this impressive medal designed by chief engraver Frank Gasparro. The largest gold medal ever produced by the U.S. Mint, it measures 76 mm in diameter and weighs in at slightly more than 15 troy ounces of .900 fine gold. On the obverse, the medal depicts Gasparro’s stylized Statue of Liberty flanked by two dates – 1776 and 1976 – and the words “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Edgar Z. Steever designed the reverse, modeled after the U.S. Great Seal. This Gem Uncirculated example with the rare Prooflike designation realized $42,000 in a May 2024 Heritage auction.
DC COMICS GOT in on the bicentennial action, too, by sending Superman back in time to 1776 Philadelphia in Action Comics No. 463. Featuring a September 1976 cover date, the issue was published in June of that year, just days before the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On the issue’s opening page, artwork by Curt Swan and Tex Blaisdell places the Man of Steel next to the Founding Fathers on that momentous occasion. Swan and Blaisdell’s Page 1 original art from that issue sold for $4,560 in a May 2021 Heritage auction.