Pa. man thinks he may have rare copy of Declaration


Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA

A suburban Philadelphia collector believes he has a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence made through a 19th century printing process that damaged the original.

Tom Lingenfelter of Doylestown has spent years researching the document he bought for $100 at a flea market.

He believes it to be an “anastatic” copy made in the 1840s. In that process, an acid-based solution was used on originals to make negatives then copied on a printing press.

But Lingenfelter says the process damaged originals, including the hand-signed Declaration of Independence then kept at the U.S. patent office.

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