Pawn Stars: TOP 4 MEGA-RARE AMERICAN DOCUMENTS

so I'm here in New York to take a look at one of the most historical documents on the planet an original Declaration of Independence broadside was probably only 20 left in private hands and I'm about to take a look at one right now Jeremy hey Rick yep I'm here for the broadside come on in there it is definitely a wow moment a wow moment right this is an extremely rare July 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence this is absolutely amazing I mean it's probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my career I've been in this market for years and it's a thrill to handle something like this so the condition of this copy is truly exceptional this was sourced from a private collection it has never been sold public auction and is highly sought after so yeah this is just incredible this was right after the Fourth of July I think it was John Dunlop was a printer in Philadelphia he goes out and um it basically takes a copy from Congress and writes it all out and goes back to the print shop lays out his print and starts printing these uh they think he printed right around 200 of them okay and that was the original one and then when other printers around the country got a hold of them they also made copies and this is the New Hampshire one correct correct that's what the way the internet works back then I mean you know it was a little bit slower so I mean like 10 days later people in New Hampshire are finding out about this a week or two later is probably in the Carolinas and eventually everybody knew about it I imagine your Local Tavern when this was first penned up there was a lot of people standing around going damn this is like putting your thumb to the most powerful country in the world at the time yeah and you know what's really cool about this one you can actually see the pinholes here in the corners which indicates that it was displayed publicly it probably hanged for a week everyone would come by and look at it oh you know after a few weeks a poster for the new band is gonna they were never ever meant to be saved yeah as far as documents go the coolest thing I've ever seen in my career so how much you're looking for this this was displayed at the national Constitution Center in Philadelphia it's an exceptional Condition it's extremely scarce 2 million okay um everything looks right on it but I just want to document expert to look at it I have one coming down best document guy in New York once he says everything's the real deal we'll go from there okay okay because a little bit of knowledge can always get you in trouble that's what I got I believe it's worth two million dollars for this but we'll leave it up to him and see what he thinks I'll be curious to know where he lands so here we go yeah I am thrilled to see this I'm Seth Keller and I'm a dealer in a museum collection Builder and an expert in important historic documents everything looks right to me but like um I don't want to be 99 sure right I normally would have to take this out of the frame to authenticate it but I've actually seen this exact copy before some of the things that we looked at when I first authenticated this was to compare this to all of the known copies of the same broadside and part of what held it up there are the nail holes from back then which are not very consistent round nails like we have today they're all handmade and different and you can see on the fan made laid paper even the impression of individual letters people think of the Declaration of Independence as the signed copy but that was actually done a month later really is a souvenir the word had to get out by these printed documents so there were a couple hundred printed on the night of July 4th to 5th they're sent out by John Hancock and the major cities where they arrive reprint them and this copy actually was posted on a wall so you can imagine 1776 somebody walking up to it and reading about this event that changed their lives all right so so it's 100 legit absolutely all right um brass tax what is it worth this particular one is a really beautiful copy and it's just a wonderful broadside and important relic of history and the world changed when the first people looked at this very document I think this could go for two million dollars at auction now that's what I want to hear man I will let you know what happens man I mean thanks for coming in okay thanks thanks good to see you this is a fantastic rare earth-changing document if Rick can purchase this I think it would be great for him I'd be a little jealous all right so he said it was you know it could be worth two million dollars you know whenever you hear on the news something's selling at an auction for a lot of money that's the headline number there is a ridiculous amount of fees I would love to give you like 1.4 million dollars um it's a fair point you make about the fees I mean you know I know how it works um I would sell it to you for 1.5 million um I'll meet you in the middle 1.45 I think that's fair I I think we can both be happy with that thank you know I think uh I think we got a deal uh oh my goodness I own the Declaration of Independence congratulations congratulations um I will get the money wired to you I will pick it up from you tomorrow um I have a friend I want to show it to you so just keep it till tomorrow and um boy I said thanks again yeah no it's been a pleasure so you know 1.45 million no fees for the auctioneers get the deal done today I'm happy you fireworks earlier a woman brought in what appears to be a bunch of Secret Pentagon reports from the 1970s they make me nervous so I asked my buddy Mark to come check him out Mark how's it going it's going well how about yourself oh pretty good we have reports from the Pentagon we're just assuming there's stuff from Watergate the Gulf of Tonkin JFK some UFO stuff we're not sure exactly all that's in here but minor little things cool I specialize in historical artifacts militaria Aviation after 35 years of running museums there isn't a lot that I haven't seen what concerns do you have about them are they rare and are they legal to own okay do you mind if I take a look at them please do okay please do okay these are in fact daily reports they were put out by the federal broadcast information service what these were for was to allow people who were interested within the Pentagon to know what was being said in foreign markets and the idea was we had somebody listening in to all the foreign radio and television and then transcribing everything they heard what was being said on the political scene during the 72 election for example and that's George McGovern and and Richard Nixon how were they reporting that in say North Vietnam that was important for planning and it took thousands of people to translate this stuff and they still do them today what's interesting here is this is the psyops copy the psychological Operations Division this was the group that would try to get stories planted to help change opinion to be more positive towards the United States and what's neat here is is the person that was getting this was docsa the deputy director of operations for counter Insurgency and special affairs he would have been the one that was in in charge of you know kind of taking this information and using it as part of the planning for what we were going to do in terms of psychological operations probably in Vietnam but in other places the Vietnam War was fought as much on the television screens and on the radios and through PR and the media as it was on the battlefield this is kind of neat because it's the original one and it was to psyops they're not common in the hard copy and this is typical binding that you would have used in a pentagon office at the time you know yeah they're probably not many of these out there the fbis reports though were not classified reports and because of that [Music] it's openly available today yes they're legal to own so they're not Secret so you're okay on that this was just public radio public television they would intercept all of that and translate this stuff but you know they're not the sort of thing that a lot of people would collect you know that they would hold on to it's been copied it's in public collections it's not rare you can go to the library and look up and read everything on every one of the pages thanks Mark not a problem you're the best I was told me he said they're not rare so I take it you're not going to give me any money for these they're not rare they're not collectible and it's all public knowledge I just wouldn't want to make an offer on them I just don't see no money here at all at least we found out a little bit about them yes thank you very much have a nice day thank you I knew it was a long shot but I was really hoping there would be something incredible in this collection hey at least I don't have to worry about getting tossed in jail what do we got I have some political memorabilia the Secret Service ID for J hard McGrath Attorney General of the United States okay some letters signed to him by Jacob Hoover Hubert Humphrey his White House pass oh that's cool and half of a ten dollar bill signed to him you know I never got the Secret Service because everybody knows they exist [Laughter] I came into the pawn shop today to try and sell some political memorabilia from the attorney general the United States J Howard McGrath I really don't know what they're worth kind of had a number of a thousand in my head but we'll see how it goes where did you get these I bought them from his grandson all right McGrath was the Attorney General under Truman late 40s early 50s I don't think McGrath was actually in the Secret Service but being the attorney general I'm sure you get any credentials he wanted he was the top law enforcement official J Howard McGrath was a power player in Washington politics he was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee when Truman ran for president so Truman picking him to be attorney general cronyism you think these are pretty interesting here and this right here is I believe that is half of a counterfeit 10 bill they signed it to the attorney general you sure it's counterfeit just not a bad misprint I don't know sometimes when the Bureau of printing engraving make a bill they screw up this print bills can be worth a lot of money to collectors but counterfeit money that's a whole different story it's a federal offense to use a counterfeit bill so I'm assuming you can't own one um yeah it's counterfeit All American currency they throw silk rag in with the paper so if you pick up a bill and you look at it closely you'll see little red and blue lines all over it if that's not there it's not real this doesn't have any of those all right I don't even think it's legal to own this thing okay this is an amazing collection you just never see stuff like this but it scares the hell out of me I mean counterfeit money and Secret Service credentials this is the kind of stuff that can get me in hot water you got some neat stuff here and these three things right here I really want to get checked out I'm not a hundred percent positive but I'm pretty sure it's a felony to own this thing yeah the last thing I need is the feds coming through the door of this place let me go make a phone call I'll be right back thanks I'm really hoping it's legal to keep this stuff because it's awesome if it checks out I'll definitely make an offer what do we have today well this is a counterfeit bill so counterfeit yeah I'm the administrator of the Clark County Museum system and after 35 years in the museum field there's not much I haven't seen at some point or another Jay Howard McGrath interesting you know who he was Attorney General of the United States well it was that too he was three-term governor of Rhode Island he was a Senator as well okay McGrath was attorney general from 49 to 52. he presided over a case that got rid of segregation in dining cars on railroads it was a fairly active time now let me take a look here [Music] this is his secret service credential the embossing the seal is right on this so this is all right normally if you see one it's been marked retired so this is quite unusual Secret Service passes like this normally they either have a stripe across them or they're marked retired so it's an interesting one because it's all completely intact how collectible is this guy and is any of this stuff legal owned having a White House pass they are not real common they are collected that on the other hand you don't want a counterfeit bill is not legal to own so obviously these guys were probably involved in whatever case this came out of and gave it to him as a souvenir this is the sort of thing that you don't want to own in 1950 things were a little looser and when you're the Attorney General of the United States some of the laws aren't enforced quite as strongly can we shred it no best thing to do is turn that into the the Secret Service okay thanks for coming in Mark not a problem you're the best appreciate it alrighty what do you want to do with these I'd like to sell them how much you want for them I'd like a thousand dollars not gonna happen we got Howard McGrath no one knows who he was this one's not stance retired you heard him say it was rare this is not exactly a bad so it's going to be a little bit harder to sell it's sort of On The Fringe of badge collecting how about 800. four yeah I mean I I need to get five [Music] thank you I'll give you 500 bucks get a deal all right you want to write them up yeah sure come with me man these Secret Service credentials are amazing even though McGrath is not exactly a household name there's collectors out there who love stuff like this earlier a guy brought in a file with the original plans from the D-Day invasion they're unbelievable but I have to find out when they were made before or after the battle so I invited my buddy mark down to take a look hey Mark how's it going hey Mark okay so what do you have today I got something really cool I have uh post battle synopsis of Operation Neptune and this right here is actual battle plans before the battle really yeah Rick and the guys normally call me down when they have something militaria historic you know I don't speak to the value of it but I can give them some understanding of what its value is historically so Rick what's what are your concerns on these this has a lot of maps and things like that in it and I'm wondering if that is pre-battle or post battle Operation Neptune was the Allied air drop into France as part of Operation Overlord which was the invasion of Normandy now this was the battle that changed World War II and led to the ultimate destruction of Germany all of World War II we started using airborne troops this was something new we hadn't done that before taking guys dropping them behind the Enemy Lines being able to disrupt what was going on rather than just going in through the front door and the idea was we were going to concentrate all these people in a couple of specific areas it would all go in together in fact would happen is people dropped all over the place it wasn't the plan but what ended up happening was the Germans didn't know where the heck we were and all of a sudden they were finding people all over the place so they thought there was a lot more men behind the line so they kept more of their troops away from Normandy which helped The Invasion on the coast so it actually worked out just glancing at this I can tell you this is post battle you can tell that just from the cover you're not going to know at the beginning of the battle what the end date is yeah these Maps would take you all the way through the battle where people landed what they did where they went find out what went right what went wrong when you want to know exactly what happened at the time this would be the primary historical document to start from during the war a lot of documents are produced top secret documents restricted documents for somebody to have been in the position to get these and bring them home and survive all this time it was wonderful to see these these were amazing documents but you said you also have pre-battle I'm assuming they are okay this is nice this is where they were supposed to be where they were supposed to come together and what do we have here top secret oh this is great this is really spectacular April of 44. these These are pre-battled this is where you're going to be landing who is going to be where which division is going to be where you know these are all the places that they're supposed to land this is how it was supposed to work you will take send Mary glaze you will seize and Destroy Crossings on the dove River this is amazing the documents from before the battle are much scarcered because these were the documents that if they got into German hands before the battle actually happened they would know exactly what we were planning on doing all of this related as it is to Operation Neptune to one of the largest Airborne operations in the history of warfare this is really quite an impressive little group of material okay so they're pretty damn rare yes these kinds of documents are going to be in places like the National Archives because it's top secret you weren't supposed to bring this stuff home unfortunately their archival pieces rather than display pieces these are quick production pieces from World War II this just doesn't hold up it is not colorfast if you get any light on it these are the sorts of things you put this in a frame and put it up on the wall it's gone these you need to just put away they need to be in a dark acid-free container and kept in a stable environment all right you're the best I got all the info man thank you all right when I first saw these things I was thinking big dollars because we have top secret battle plans for the invasion of Normandy now that I find out that I can't frame them and hang them on a wall that's going to be a major problem collectors of military stuff they want to hang them on the wall they want to talk about them they want to show their friends I mean they're important pieces of history and they should be treated as such unfortunately for me I can't take them if I can't sell them I'm a business here I you know I'm not a museum okay awesome thanks for bringing them in all right hey thank you very much thank you sir there's no question these are great pieces of history but I kind of dodged the bullet in half a year I would have had really expensive blank pieces of paper hanging on my wall

Channel: Pawn Stars

Views: 243,308

Keywords: pawn, pawn stars, pawn stars episode, pawn stars full episode, the pawn stars, pawn star, pawn stars episodes, pawn stars chumlee, pawn shop, pawnstars, pawn stars old man, pawn stars full episodes, chumlee, pawn stars marathon, pawn stars best of, pawn stars american documents, Pawn Stars: TOP 4 MEGA-RARE AMERICAN DOCUMENTS, pawn stars top moments, pawn stars compilation, pawn stars declaration of independence, pawn stars d day plans, pawn stars secret service credentials

Id: E9M9nF5h-7c

Length: 21min 12sec (1272 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023