A rare letter signed by three of the founding fathers of the United States is up for sale and is expected to fetch up to $1 million when it goes on sale next week.

The letter, signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, is addressed to the “Envoy Extraordinary of the King of the Two Sicilies” and requests negotiations for a friendship and trade agreement, according to auction house Bonhams. sales.

“An important statement of the emerging American free trade policy, it is probably the only extant example of any letter signed by all three of the Founding Fathers, the men most responsible for the Declaration of Independence,” Bonhams said in a listing on its website.

The letter, dated 1784, was written after America gained its independence, but at a time when it was unclear whether the new nation would succeed.

That year, Congress assigned Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson to make treaties with 20 other countries, thus strengthening America’s position in the world.

“These ‘Friendship and Commerce’ treaties, approved by Congress immediately after independence and long before the enactment of the Federal Constitution, were essentially the establishment of a new, largely trade-based system that would reshape the face of international politics.” The Bonhams.

Bidding starts at $550,000 and is expected to reach up to $1 million when the letter goes under the hammer on November 12.

Objects and artifacts linked to the founding fathers are often popular at auctions, attracting astronomical bids.

In 2017, manuscripts, personal letters and hundreds of other documents taken from founding father Alexander Hamilton’s desk sold for a total of $2.6 million at Sotheby’s in New York, according to the auction house.

History buffs will also be able to bid on other historical items, including a lock of George Washington’s hair, at a sale coordinated by the New York-based Guernsey auction house on November 22.

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