Live Auction: 24 June 2026 • 2:00 PM EDT • New York

T his June, Sotheby’s will present The Jay T. Snider Collection of Benjamin Franklin, a dedicated sale of the greatest private assembly of Benjamin Franklin material ever to come to auction. The items span the full arc of the polymath’s extraordinary career through printed ephemera, books, letters, newspaper, almanacs, manuscripts and artifacts.

Jay T. Snider is an entrepreneur, executive, and philanthropist whose deep roots in Philadelphia have long informed his engagement with American history and civic life. A former President of the Philadelphia Flyers NHL franchise and of Spectacor, Snider has pursued his passion for historical Americana across decades of collecting, with his collection focused specifically on not only Benjamin Franklin, but Philadelphia's foundational role in the American story. The collection is the culmination of that lifelong dedication and offers an illuminating portrait of Franklin, told through the primary documents and artifacts of the man himself.

Highlights from the collection will be displayed in a public exhibition at the Library Company of Philadelphia from 5–7 May and at our galleries at the Breuer Building from 20–24 June. As part of our Book Week sale series, the sale will open for bidding on 3 June and culminate in a live auction on 24 June at 2 p.m.

Jay Snider has been a serious collector of Americana for over thirty-five years, and will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the great collectors of our era. During that time it has been my privilege to work with and advise him in assembling his Franklin collection, and in addition, his other collections of Americana. Jay also worked very closely with the late William S. Reese. The fruits of our collaborative efforts can be seen in the two sales of Jay’s books that were sold at auction: the first by Christie’s in 2005, and the second by Bloomsbury in 2008.

Not since Stan V. Henkels of Philadelphia sold Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker’s collection in 1905 has anything approached the scope and depth of Jay’s collection. It should however be noted that what is being offered in the present catalogue represents only twenty or twenty-five percent of the collection.

Jay’s first collection was sold by Christie’s in June of 2005, and was described as being the first highly important sale of Americana to be held in the 21st century. That sale included books about the colonial and revolutionary periods; Native Americans, and books about the west. And in addition to books, there were manuscripts and broadsides, all in choice condition, and many with exceptional provenance, including names like Brinley, Henry DuPuy, Hershel V. Jones, Thomas W. Streeter, Frank Siebert, and Laird U. Park. Consisting of some 346 items, the sale realized $6,318,720. The second of his collections, sold by Bloomsbury Auctions in November of 2008, was arguably the best and most impressive collection of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania materials offered at auction ever. In addition to books, pamphlets and broadsides it had an impressive collection of maps and prints, the majority of which had been collected by Martin Snyder, author of City of Independence and Mirror of America.

The last important collection of Franklinian materials offered at auction was the Stuart Karu sale at Sotheby’s in June 1992. Before that, the great collections with significant books written or printed by Franklin were the Brinley sales, held between 1878 and 1893; Robert Proud’s Papers in 1903; and Moses Polock’s collection in 1904. The collection of Samuel W. Pennypacker, former governor of Pennsylvania, was sold in eight sessions between 1905 and 1909. The Pennypacker collection has always been a sort of yardstick by which other collections have been measured. Jay’s collection will definitely take its place among those fabled collections. His collection contains over forty books that were listed in the Brinley sales, and numerous others that were in Pennypacker. There are of course books that appear here that were not found in either of those sales.

The Snider collection contains rarity after rarity; a number of which are known in only a handful of copies; they have not been seen on the market in decades, if ever. One of the true gems of the collection is the Mortgage Register, a bound volume of partly printed forms, many accomplished, issued for the paper money act of 1729. These 278 forms, printed by Franklin, and his partner, Hugh Meredith, comprised Franklin’s first government job. At the time of its purchase, it was unknown to scholars, and was not included in William Miller’s bibliography Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia Printing. The American Philosophical Society printed a ninety page booklet about this important piece as a supplement to Miller. In Volume 1 (p. 373) of his biography of Franklin, Leo Lemay describes this amazing volume, and discusses its discovery.

There are early Poor Richard Almanacs; Pocket Almanacs; the extremely rare John Jerman American Almanack for 1731, printed by Franklin & Meredith in 1730, held by neither Brinley nor Pennypacker, with only four copies listed in Miller; and the extremely scarce Poor Roger 1756 American Country Almanack, known in only two copies. Woolverton’s Christ the Eternal Word, one of only two known copies, was printed by Franklin in 1738.

There are autograph letters, including one of the earliest extant Franklin letters, written to John Ladd in June, 1738; a highly important letter to William Strahan that discusses the Library Company; an autograph letter written to Joseph Galloway, June 10, 1758, written during his first mission to England; two letters written to Polly Stevenson; an autograph letter written February 20, 1774 to his wife, Deborah Read; and a very rare autograph letter written by Franklin’s son William Franklin in 1777, during his confinement in Connecticut.

There is a 1744 Indian Treaty; the 1744 printing of An Essay on West India Dry Gripes; Library Company of Philadelphia material; Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania: Phila., 1749; Richard Peters’ Sermon on Education, inscribed by Franklin; a very rare Stamp Act broadside by William Franklin (Miller 837), known in only two copies, both in Pennsylvania institutions; Franklin’s copy of Lettres d’un Fermier de Pensylvanie... with his shelf mark, and inscribed by Nicholas Dufief to Dickinson, plus dozens of other choice items.

What is striking about the Snider collection is its balance, and of course the rarity and importance of the books and letters. In my case it is bittersweet to see these books and letters sold, but that is the nature of collecting. I have enjoyed working with Jay all these years and having played a role in helping to assemble this wonderful collection. And for those of us who love Franklin it is an opportunity to buy things we might never have another chance to acquire.