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VA Mans Owns Copy OF Declaration of Independence

Court: Va. man owns 1776 copy of Declaration
Associated Press Writer Michael Felberbaum, RICHMOND, Va. – A rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence belongs to a Virginia technology entrepreneur, not the state of Maine, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday. Richard Adams Jr. of Fairfax County purchased the document from a London book dealer in 2001 for $475,000. But the state of Maine claimed it belongs to the town of Wiscasset, where it was kept by the town clerk in 1776.

Virginia's high court said that a lower court did not err in its ruling in Adams' favor because Maine didn't prove the document was ever an official town record and that Adams had superior title to the print.

Adams' attorney, Robert K. Richardson, has argued that Wiscasset's town clerk copied the text of the Declaration of Independence into the town's record books on Nov. 10, 1776. It's that transcription, not the document upon which it was based, that is the official town record, Richardson said.

"The fact that the print was not made by an authorized public officer and was not intended to be the official memorial of the Declaration precluded the print from qualifying as a 'public record' under common law," the court said in its ruling.

Back in the id 90's on a vacation to the San Juan Islands I stopped in a little antique store on Orca Island. In that store I bought a 4 volume set of Thomas Jefferson's Works, Letters and Miscellaneous published after his death in 1828 by his nephew Thomas Jefferson Randolph. The set cost me $75. In the back of Volume 1 was a copy of a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. A few years back I found a set for sale of Tj's works for about $1500.

The fact that this is the birth certificate of a once great nation is more relevant than the monetary worth. But, I suppose there will always be those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Interesting comment on our values that certain collectible automobiles are sold for more than an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.