Dunlap Broadsides

On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence from England and on July 4 they adopted the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. John Dunlap was the printing contractor to the Second Continental Congress. John Hancock ordered Dunlap to print broadside – poster sized – copies of the declaration. Those first printed copies of the Declaration are now known as the Dunlap Broadsides. Historians believe Dunlap printed approximately 200 broadside copies as he worked through the night of July 4, 1776. Twenty-five have survived to this day and are in various museums and private collections. A Dunlap broadside, unsigned, recently sold for $8.14 million, the highest price ever achieved for an object sold at an Internet auction. This copy was discovered in 1989 by a man browsing in a flea market who purchased a painting for four dollars because he was interested in the frame. Concealed in the backing of the frame was an original Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration of Independence.