# Dunlap Broadside [Declaration of Independence] > John Dunlap - Night of July 4-5, 1776 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/john-dunlap/dunlap-broadside-declaration-of-independence/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-19 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** John Dunlap - **Date:** Night of July 4-5, 1776 - **Medium:** Letterpress printing in black ink from movable type, on a single sheet of laid paper, printed on one side only - **Dimensions:** Not established to the precision of an exact measurement for this specific copy in the sources consulted; see technical notes - **Object type:** Print - **Period:** American, Revolutionary War era, 1776 - **Current location:** National Archives Building, Washington, DC - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary This is not the famous signed parchment under glass in the National Archives Rotunda. It is the object that came before it: a single printed sheet, run off in John Dunlap's Philadelphia shop on the night of July 4-5, 1776, in an edition of perhaps one to two hundred copies, so that Congress's vote for independence could reach state governments and the army before the British did anything about it. This specific copy is the one Secretary Charles Thomson folded and sealed into Congress's own working journal on July 5, 1776, rather than sending out to a state or a general, which means it has never left United States government custody in two hundred and fifty years, surviving the burning of Washington in 1814 and two later conservation campaigns along the way.The best-known Dunlap story belongs to a different copy entirely: the one found behind a four-dollar flea-market painting in 1989, sold in 1991 for 2.42 million dollars and again in 2000 for 8.14 million to a partnership that included Norman Lear, and toured to all fifty states. That copy remains in private hands and has no free, licensed photograph available, which is why this record documents its less famous but fully photographable sibling instead, with the flea-market copy's full history told in the narrative as context, not as the subject.Roughly twenty-six copies of the Dunlap Broadside have been counted as survivors for most of the last decade; a still-unsettled reattribution in August 2026 at the UK National Archives may raise that to twenty-seven. About 170 or more of the original print run remain unaccounted for entirely. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **4-5 July 1776-5 July 1776** John Dunlap (printer, acting for the Continental Congress) `[documented]` (origin) Printed in Dunlap's Philadelphia shop the night Congress approved the Declaration's text, as one of an estimated 100 to 200 copies produced for immediate distribution. - **5 July 1776-1800** The Continental Congress and its successor federal government `[documented]` (retention) Secretary Charles Thomson folded this specific copy and adhered it with wafer seals into page 94 of volume 3 of the Rough Journal of the Continental Congress, at the entry for July 4, rather than sending it out to a state or army command. The bound volume moved with Congress through the disruptions of the Revolutionary War and the several temporary seats of government that followed, before the federal government settled in Washington, DC in 1800. - **1800-1903** United States government, held in Washington, DC `[documented]` (custody) The volume and its pasted-in broadside survived the British burning of Washington in 1814 and were subsequently moved among several State Department buildings over the course of the nineteenth century as the department's own premises changed. - **1903-1952** Library of Congress `[documented]` (transfer) An act of Congress in 1903 transferred the Papers of the Continental Congress, including this volume, from the State Department to the Library of Congress. - **1952-present** National Archives and Records Administration `[documented]` (transfer and current custody) Transferred to the newly established National Archives in 1952 as part of Record Group 360, where it remains. Exhibited publicly in American Originals (1995-1996) and, as of 2025-2027, as part of the America250 semiquincentennial display programme. Conserved 2016-2018. ## Exhibitions - American Originals, National Archives Rotunda, Washington, DC, 1995-1996 - Opening the Vault / Declaration of Independence display, America250 semiquincentennial program, National Archives Museum, Washington, DC (through 5 July 2027), 2025-2027 ## Open questions - Who was the 1989 flea-market buyer? His name has not been publicly disclosed in any source consulted for this record, only his profession, reportedly a Philadelphia-area financial analyst. - Who owns the flea-market copy today? It was resold privately in 2011 immediately after its fifty-state tour ended; no subsequent owner has been publicly named and no further sale has been reported. - Does the National Archives Rough Journal copy carry the corrected reading "our common kindred" or the earlier, erroneous reading identified at the Beinecke copy? This record found no source that states which state of the text this specific copy represents. - How many Dunlap Broadsides actually survive as of this writing? Twenty-six is the figure in most references through 2025; a still-recent August 2026 reattribution at the UK National Archives would bring the count to twenty-seven, but whether that revised figure has been generally accepted by the scholarly and institutional community was not established in the sources consulted. - Where are the roughly 170 or more copies from the original estimated print run of about 200 that have never been accounted for? Presumed lost, destroyed, or simply never rediscovered; no systematic accounting of their fate exists in the sources consulted. - What did the 2016-2018 conservation treatment find or record about the Rough Journal's original sewing structure when the volume was disbound for treatment, beyond the general summary published on the National Archives' own blog? A fuller conservation report, if one exists, was not located for this record. ## Sources - [1] U.S. National Archives, "Dunlap Broadside (First Printing of the Declaration of Independence)". - [2] U.S. National Archives Catalog record for NAID 301682, "Dunlap Broadside [Declaration of Independence]", scope, content, and exhibit history mirrored via its Wikimedia Commons file description page. - [3] U.S. National Archives, "Preserving the Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration of Independence", Pieces of History blog, 2 July 2021. - [4] U.S. National Archives, "Dunlap's Declaration of Independence", Pieces of History blog, 3 July 2018. - [5] National Park Service, "Dunlap Broadside (First Printing of the Declaration of Independence)". - [6] World Digital Library / Library of Congress, item description for Dunlap Broadside [Declaration of Independence], WDL 2716, mirrored via Wikimedia Commons file description page. - [7] Declaration Stories, "Road Trip". - [8] The Seattle Times (archive), "'Declaration' copy found at flea market comes to Seattle", 20 August 2003. - [9] The Christian Science Monitor, "The price of 'independence': $8.1 million", 3 July 2000. - [10] cllct, "How the Declaration of Independence was once bought for $4 at a flea market". - [11] Snopes, "Did a Bargain Hunter Find Original Print of Declaration of Independence?" Consulted only through a search-engine summary; the page itself could not be retrieved (paywall). Flagged for direct verification before further reliance. - [12] Wikipedia, "John Dunlap". Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a documentary biography of Dunlap. - [13] Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Pennsylvania State University Libraries, "John Dunlap". - [14] Anglotopia, "The National Archives Identifies Its Odd Declaration of Independence as the 27th Surviving Dunlap Broadside", 12 August 2026. Retrieved only in part (page metadata and summary; full article body did not load). Flagged for a fuller primary source, ideally the UK National Archives' own statement. - [15] Spectrum News, "Exhibits highlight first printings of America's 'birth certificate'", 15 May 2026. - [16] The Philadelphia Inquirer, "A Jewish merchant from Market Street mailed a copy of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago. It's back in Philly.", 5 June 2026. - [17] U.S. National Archives, press release NR25-11, "National Archives to Display Rare Declaration of Independence-Related Documents". Consulted only through a search-engine summary; the release page itself could not be retrieved (repeated server error). Flagged for direct verification. - [18] Wikimedia Commons, file description page for the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library's Dunlap Broadside. - [19] Declaration Stories, "Ties of Common Kindred" (on the Beinecke copy's missing word and the 1975 Library of Congress census examination led by Frederick R. Goff). - [20] Fonts In Use, "The Dunlap Broadside" (typographic analysis: type matching against Caslon's 1766 specimen book, line length, layout, and physical evidence of printing haste). --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.