Why, I declare!

A lucky bargain hunter became a millionaire after finding an original print of the Declaration of Independence in the frame of an old painting.

In 1989, a Philadelphia financial analyst discovered something unusual in an old picture he'd bought for $4 at a flea market in Adamstown, PA. He'd purchased the painting (an old, torn depiction of a country scene) because he liked the frame. He liked it even more once he discovered that a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence lurked within it.

When he had attempted to detach the frame from the painting, the frame fell apart in his hands. He then found a folded document between the canvas and wood backing which appeared to be an old copy of the Declaration of Independence. A friend who collected Civil War memorabilia advised him to have it appraised.

It was real: one of 500 official copies from the first printing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. (Only twenty-four similar copies were known to exist before this find, of which a mere three were privately owned.) This rare document was offered for sale by Sotheby's on 4 June 1991, and the lucky find fetched even more than had been anticipated: the $800,000 to $1.2 million estimate turned into $2.42 million by the sound of the gavel.

What did Donald Scheer of Atlanta, head of Visual Equities Inc., get for his $2.42 million? Months prior to the auction, Sotheby's had confirmed the printed broadsheet not only as authentic but also as 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 thirteen colonies. (This copy was put up for sale again in June 2000, fetching a $8.14 million bid from television producer Norman Lear in an on-line auction.