Ethel Kennedy, the widow of the late Robert F. Kennedy, a senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy, will be selling a rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln. Robert F. Kennedy bought the document in 1964 at Sotheby’s for $9,400, when he was serving as U.S. attorney general.
Sotheby’s is hosting the sale of the document once more on December 10th, which could bring as much as $1.5 million. Kennedy’s copy of the Proclamation is one of 48 that were printed and signed in 1863 and only about half of those survive today. The original, handwritten Emancipation Proclamation is in the National Archives.
Before the auction, the document will be exhibited in Boston, Philadelphia and New York.