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.