The Raab Collection announced today that it has acquired and will offer for sale a document representing the first formal act of peace between two warring nations: the new United States of America and the British Empire, a document signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay.
“This is an extraordinary rarity in addition to being a wonderful combination of signatures,” said Nathan Raab, principal and author of The Hunt for History. “But far more significantly, it is one of the most important documents relating to the end of the American Revolution ever offered for sale.”
Provenance: It previously reached the market in 1931, when it was sold at Anderson Galleries, previously having sold at Henkels Auction in the 1920s and identified as having belonged to attorney Henry Goldsmith of New York. This document has not been offered for sale in almost 100 years. It is valued at $250,000.
The document: Document signed, Paris, February 6, 1783.
To fulfill the American/British agreement, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay authorize a resumption of trade between the formerly warring nations
Raab has worked with the families of many great historical figures on the treasures that have descended to them, including Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James K. Polk, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, Gerald Ford, Signers of the Declaration of Independence, senior leadership in the Civil War, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It has worked to bring to the market many unpublished historical archives from all over the world.
