NEW YORK (AP) — A rare 1776 broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence has sold for $514,000 at a New York City auction.

Heritage Auctions says it was acquired by an anonymous buyer on Tuesday. It had a pre-sale estimate of $200,000.

Very few early broadside printings of the Declaration have survived.

The broadside printing was ordered on July 17, 1776, by the Massachusetts Bay Council and read by the Rev. Levi Frisbie to his congregation in Ipswich, north of Boston.

When the Declaration of Independence was ratified, Congress ordered that it be read throughout the colonies. The first broadside was printed in Philadelphia by John Dunlap on the evening of July 4, 1776. Additional printings appeared over the next few weeks as broadsides, in books and in newspapers.

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