The Counting House No. 5 — What It's Worth, and What That Means

Before the Storm — Post 4 of 5

People ask me two questions when I describe this document. The first is historical — what does it mean, what does it tell us, why does it matter. The second is financial — what is it worth.

I used to answer the second question with some discomfort, as though the monetary value somehow diminished the historical significance. I have stopped feeling that way. The two questions are connected, and the connection is interesting.

The Authentication Process

When I decided to take this seriously, the first professional step was authentication.

The Certificate of Authenticity I bought with the document in 1998 — from Heritage Collectors Society in Doylestown, Pennsylvania — covered only the Hancock signature. The firm appears to have reduced its operations significantly in the years since; my attempts to contact them for original purchase records were unsuccessful. The 1998 COA is useful as provenance but is not, by current market standards, sufficient for a document of this potential value.

I submitted the document to James Spence Authentication — JSA — in Parsippany, New Jersey on February 21, 2026. JSA is one of the most respected autograph authentication services in the country, used routinely by major auction houses including RR Auction in Boston, which handles some of the finest Revolutionary-era documents sold at public sale.

The LOA came back nine days later — faster than I expected. It certified the Hancock and Sayward signatures. But it listed only two. The mat that had covered the lower portion of the document during framing had also covered the Freame signature during the examination.

I had the document professionally unframed. The Freame signature — now clearly readable as Jno Freame, preceded by Your most Ob: Hble Serv: — is going back to JSA for a third authentication. The full three-signature LOA, when it comes back, is what transforms this from a documented curiosity into a fully authenticated primary source object.

What It’s Worth

I want to be honest about what I know and what I don’t.

Before I understood what I had, a John Hancock autograph on a bill of exchange might fetch $2,000 to $4,000 at auction — depending on the document type, condition, and context. That is the baseline for a Hancock signature without unusual provenance.

A triple-signed document — Hancock, Sayward, and Freame, all three authenticated — is in a different category. The combination of a major patriot figure, a well-documented Loyalist whose diaries are held by a major archive, and a signature from the founding family of one of the world’s largest banks creates multiple collector audiences where there was previously one.

Comparable documents — triple-signed colonial commercial instruments with verified historical connections — have sold in the $15,000 to $30,000 range at major auction houses, and occasionally beyond that when institutional buyers are in the room. The Barclays connection creates an institutional audience that most Hancock documents never attract. A corporate archive pays differently than an individual collector.

The academic paper adds another dimension. When a document is accompanied by a published peer-reviewed paper establishing its historical significance, it becomes something other than a collectible. It becomes a documented primary source. That distinction matters to auction buyers and to the institutions who sometimes outbid them.

The timing is also, frankly, fortunate. July 4, 2026 is the 250th anniversary of American independence. The auction market for Revolutionary-era documents is already showing heightened activity in anticipation of that date. RR Auction in Boston has been building its inventory and its marketing around the anniversary. A document dated August 27, 1765 — with the story this one carries — is precisely what that market is looking for.

The Question I Keep Getting Asked

The question is: are you going to sell it?

The honest answer is: I don’t know yet.

I have thought seriously about donating it. The American Antiquarian Society would be a natural home — they hold the Sayward diaries, and a document bearing Sayward’s signature from the same year as Volume 6 would complete a remarkable triangulation in their own collection. Historic New England, which operates the Sayward-Wheeler House museum, is another possibility. The Massachusetts Historical Society holds Hancock’s letterbooks; they might value a document that speaks directly to his commercial operations in 1765.

A donation to a qualifying institution would be a non-cash charitable contribution — deductible at fair market value, which would require a separate appraisal by an IRS-qualified appraiser. At the valuations being discussed, the tax benefit is real but secondary to the question of where the document does the most good.

The sell scenario wins financially in almost every case. But the donation scenario keeps something in the world that might otherwise end up behind glass in a private collection, inaccessible to researchers. The diary entries that Ashley Cataldo sent me exist at the AAS. The document that those diary entries corroborate — the one that now speaks directly to their holdings — could exist there too.

I haven’t decided. I am going to see the authentication through, get the paper into review, and make the decision with full information.

The Sell vs. Donate Calculation

I am a retired database administrator. I am not wealthy. The financial outcome of this matters to me in practical ways, not just theoretical ones.

But I am also someone who has spent the past several months watching a piece of paper become something that scholars and archivists respond to with genuine excitement. Ashley Cataldo at the AAS sent me those diary images because she found the research compelling. These are not commercial responses. They are institutional responses to a primary source object.

I think about Jonathan Sayward writing in his diary on August 26, 1765 — “the mob Rose in Boston” — and John Freame drawing a payment order in Halifax the next morning. Those two acts, separated by three thousand miles, are now connected by research. They speak to each other. That connection seems worth preserving somewhere it can be studied.

The auction is one kind of preservation. The archive is another.

I have until the authentication comes back to decide which kind I believe in more.

Post 5: “Writing History Without a History Degree” — on the paper, the AI, the disclosure, and what happens when a database administrator decides to make an argument.

Paul G. Molé is a retired database administrator and independent scholar from Stillwater, New Jersey.