Workers at a Goodwill collection center in Bellmawr, New Jersey, discovered pages from a very rare historical newspaper among donations.
An unknown donor dropped off four framed pages from an original 1774 Philadelphia newspaper that predates the Revolutionary War and features a “Unite or Die” snake design.
The Dec. 28, 1774, edition of the “Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser” is quite the find. It features three items signed by John Hancock, then president of the Provincial Congress, who pleads for the Colonies to fight back “enemies” trying to divide them, reports the Associated Press.
The paper also includes an advertisement for a lecture by famous Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, ads offering rewards for lost horses and runaway apprentices, and an ad in which the poster insists he will no longer pay his “misbehav(ing)” wife’s debts.
When unique items are donated to Goodwill, they are sent out for appraisal, Heather Randall, e-Commerce Manager for Goodwill of Southern New Jersey and Greater Philadelphia, explained to NJ Pen.
Randall and her team specialize in identifying high-value items and collectibles that have been donated to the processing center. Most are sold on the company’s auction website, ShopGoodwill.com.
“We get a lot of stuff from all over, and it’s amazing,” Randall said. “There’s some really neat provenance to these things.”
In case you are wondering if the newspaper is the real deal, NJ Pen reports:
An analysis returned by Robert Snyder of the New York, New York-based Cohasco, Inc. identified the paper as “unquestionably authentic” and “of perennial desirability.”
The only other known copies of the paper from that date are stored at Illinois State University, the University of Chicago, and Yale.
The December 28, 1774 edition, which was printed by William and Thomas Bradford of Philadelphia, is one of a few with the “short-lived ‘Unite or Die’ masthead” known to have survived today, Snyder wrote.
Snyder told the Associated Press a bit more about the paper:
“It’s only three or four months until the first actual shots of the revolution were fired. So by this time, everybody was good and mad,” said Snyder, who said newspapers of the day were more partisan than today, although the level of debate was more highbrow. The Pennsylvania Journal was published by William and Thomas Bradford, who came from a distinguished local family of booksellers and printers.
“They obviously had a very strong belief system. They were willing to risk their lives to publish,” he said.
Goodwill attempted to sell the paper at auction on the company’s website, but didn’t get a buyer.
Ideally, the company would like to return it to its original owner, or to place it with a private collector or a museum, Randall said.
If sold through the right brokerage, Snyder estimates the pages could be sold from $6,000 to $16,000. Randall said Goodwill Industries would use the funds for its educational and job-training services.
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Go watch a movie on YouTube called ‘A Canterbury Tale’ 1944 courtesy of Dubjax… lol, there’s a lot more that connects us than mere politics y’know 😉
Wow the virtue signalers even got to this donor. He felt so bad having this on his wall he took them down and gave it to goodwill. Or maybe his grandkids chided him until he couldnt take it anymore. Those sniveling snowflakes made him self hate and virtue signal by getting rid of such racist propaganda. Why should he think he should be free he was an oppressor and slave owner and should provide reparations for his familys success. He owes somebody so ething andnthe snowflakes surely want to collect. He deserves no freedom and should depart himself of all his monetary and valuable possessions and prove his worth by giving it to poor under privileged highly pigmented skinned people and allow refugees to live in his home and cook them dinner every night. But, it still wont be enough. It woulnt be enough if he tortured and eventually committed suicide. They would want go tarnish his legacy until no generation would resemble nor remember lightly pigmented skinned people. For surely they are the devil, the white devil.
Rather, I would say being forced into attending a public school is a crime within itself, a crime against humanity – period.
If you snooze, you lose. Someone is arrested for sending fake bombs all over. Looks Hispanic. Possibly Cuban. Extensive petty crime record in Florida. Was he one of Castro’s “Marielito’s”? And he’s innocent until proven guilty. Remember Richard Jewel? He was falsely accused of the Atlanta Olympic bombing.
Correction. He self identifies as Native American. Seminole.
Like most Senminoles, he’s half indian, half black. A confused guy looking for his identity, that likes weapons and bombs. Until recently he was into leftist websites. He also looks like he is, well..demonically possesed, like the connecticut shooter. The CT shooter was into satanic websites and ideology, and my best guess is that this guy was too. Satanism leaads to being psychotic/insane.
United we stand… There’s a lot to say about ‘comradery’ God Bless America.
– and God Bless Israel.
Yeah right!Who sent you here to disrupt?What does this article have to do with Israel?
(just threw up in my mouth)
Would have liked to read what the newspaper said as “They were willing to risk their lives to publish”
“Most are sold on the company’s auction website”. These will be sold by Sotheby’s. 🙂
Damn man, I need to watch goodwill’s auction sites!
The fact that it was found and not specifically donated shows that the people who gave it to goodwill had no idea of it’s importance. Shows how stupid people have become.
I love stupid people. It means there are still cool things to “find”. My mother made a very good living off them in her antique shop in the early ’80s when silver & gold took off. These fools would come in and sell the grandmother’s Tiffany silver service for melt. Even at the elevated silver price it was a fraction of what it was worth. Mom would try to tell them. They didn’t care. They wanted MONEY. Most people don’t have the class for nice things. They deserve their impecuniousness.
^^^^ WHAT HE SAID!
Got to luv History… read old books like from the late 1800′. All Wondering what the prospective America Experiment, will this become?
Answer: The best way to predict the future, is to create it. Get buzy folks..
Stu: My cat is smarter than most people. I can connect with cats, they listen!
Ya I love our cats too. But cats have cattitude. Now our doggie is of the smartest breed of dogs as in #1 and he shows it. Absolutely the best doggy I have ever seen. Picks up on things super fast and extremely well behaved around other people and dogs. At 8 months old he is quite impressive for a 62 pound pupperoni! He is loved by everyone he meets….
1/2 border collie, 1/4 australian shepard, 1/4 blue heeler.
I seen the sword and buttons from a Hessian that was buried in a friends backyard that he accidentally discovered in the mid 1970s in neighboring Westville NJ. A friend found a bayonet from the Revolutionary War in close by Mickleton NJ. There’s boo-coo history in that area.
According to him no bones, no clothing, just metal, brass hat thing, sword, scabbard. Guess the soil dissolved everything. A farmer in the area has a cannon ball that was used as a door holder.
Hey! I got me one of those when I was a kid visiting the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia in 1966. Picked it up along with my antique copy of the Constitution. Paid a whole dollar.
Publicity stunt fake news. I don’t believe this story. Things made of paper deteriorate. It would have been in a museum or at Yale in a protective glass case at precisely the right temperature and humidity. Or at the home of some Rothschild.
Gullible people believe what they read in reputable newspapers like the New York Times. New Jersey is right next to New York.
_
It would be pretty cool to own a hiatorical document like that. Maybe in a couple years if the ol investments grow a bit ^_^