*An auctioneer says a copy of former President Barack Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention (DNC) speech could command more than $1 million when it hits the auction block next week, reports The Hill.
“We have it estimated at $750,000. To me, I see no way this is not a seven-figure piece,” Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions, told Yahoo Finance on Friday (March 31).
Bidding starts at $100,000 for the printed speech that’s held together in a three-ring binder. Then-senator Obama had the paper version of his speech, in which he accepted the nomination for president “with profound gratitude and great humility,” at the podium in case of any teleprompter drama.
The auction house says the paper version of the speech was “photo-matched with ironclad certainty” and was originally picked up by a construction worker tasked with dismantling the DNC stage in Denver.
The worker — whose DNC security badge is included in the auction along with the speech — reportedly first attempted to give the binder to Secret Service agents, but the security detail allowed him to keep it.
“This speech occurred 45 years later to the day of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. And this is what he had with him on the podium, and this was the historic document that really completed the dream of Martin Luther King,” Goldin told the news site.
Goldin says the 54-page document is “so historically important,” that he sees it being housed in either the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture or at Obama’s future presidential library in Chicago.
Ten percent of the proceeds from the sale will go to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, according to Goldin Auctions.
Bidding for Obama’s DNC speech opens on Monday.
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