Court: Va. man owns 1776 copy of Declaration: Tech entrepreneur purchased document from a book dealer for $475,000
Although it's a loss to archives, I have to agree with the court. I don't think the state of Maine proved its case.
Maine says that the disputed printed copy of the Declaration of Independence is a Maine official public document and is subject to their ownership because it was never officially released, but rather was retained by a clerk and then was mixed up with his personal estate, which was sold.
The collector's lawyers argued that the copy that was transcribed from this one into the town's books was, indeed a public record, but the Declaration itself is not. It is one of a series of copies of the Declaration printed in Salem and sent to Massachusetts towns (Maine was originally part of Massachusetts) to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 so they could be read to the populace.
I just don't see that as an official document; it wasn't produced by the state or local town as a permanently held record, but rather was a copy much like a facsimile of an important federal document might be posted online for others to read. Also, I'm not sure when the state law was made about releasing official documents, but the clerk died in 1929, so I'd be interested in whether the law predated that.
The collector didn't do anything shady, the provenance was not shady, and I don't think the collector should be out anything just because he was shrewd enough to purchase it and a public archives did not. I'm sure there are plenty of my fellow librarians who wouldn't agree, but that's my opinion. It's the court's opinion that really matters. There's nowhere to go up in terms of appeals for cases like this, so the matter is settled.
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