The first dated print of “The Star-Spangled Banner” has raised a total of $325.000 on Christie's online sales platform. This rare newspaper print was the first to appear at auction and was available for online bidding June 2-18, 2020as part of The Open Book: Fine Travel, Americana, Literature and History in Print and Manuscript during the Classic Week sales series. The sale set a world auction record for a nineteenth-century newspaper.
Peter Klarnet, Senior Specialist, Books & Manuscripts comments, “This extremely rare issue of The Baltimore Patriot & Evening Advertiser is one of three confirmed copies, two of which are held by the American Antiquarian Society. We are thrilled with the outcome of the sale of this duplicate issued by the Company's large holdings, especially knowing that the proceeds from the hammer will benefit their fund acquisitions funding a major fundraising mission.”
Founded in 1812 by printer Isaiah Thomas in Worcester, Massachusetts, the American Antiquarian Society is one of the oldest knowledge societies in the United States. Its primary mission is to collect, preserve, and make available printed matter in what became the United States from the seventeenth century to 1876. In 2014, the Society was awarded the National Humanities Medal, “for safeguarding American history. For more than two centuries, the Society has amassed an unprecedented collection of American historical documents, served as a research center for scholars and students, and connected generations of Americans to their cultural heritage."
