The United States approaches its 250th anniversary at a fragile moment in its history, but the market for Americana has seldom been stronger. Once a niche category built around furniture, folk art and decorative objects, it has increasingly become a one of national symbols at the top end. Headline-generating sales of founding documents, presidential artifacts, political memorabilia and Western artworks have turned American identity itself into a trophy asset.
That shift has accelerated in recent years, as new and younger buyers discover the category and auction houses broaden the definition of Americana beyond its traditional base of silver, ceramics, stoneware and samplers. According to Pi-Ex, public auction results from New York’s January Americana sales have climbed from roughly $40 million in 2020 to more than $160 million in 2026. Historical documents sit at the very top of the category, followed closely by Western American art. Traditional Americana remains central to the field, of course, but its price ceiling is generally lower and its sales less impactful. The record lots below show how Americana has moved from the domestic interior to the national imagination with trophy pieces that play a role in defining the country’s mythology.
The top Americana results at auction
The first printing of the final text of the U.S. Constitution
Charles Willson Peale’s ‘George Washington at Princeton’
An Abraham Lincoln-signed copy of the Thirteenth Amendment
Frederic Remington’s ‘Coming to the Call’
Frederic Remington’s ‘An Argument with the Town Marshall’
Frederic Remington’s ‘Coming Through the Rye’
A signed official ratification copy of the U.S. Constitution
An original Dunlap Declaration of Independence broadside
A working draft of U.S. Constitution with edits by Rufus King
The first printing of the final text of the U.S. Constitution
At Sotheby’s in 2021. Result: $43.2 million.
A printing known as the “Official Edition” was produced in an edition of approximately 500 copies by convention printers John Dunlap and David Claypoole on September 18, 1787. Only 13 original copies are known to survive today, with just two in private hands. One of the two was sold at Sotheby’s in 2021 for $43.2 million after an eight-minute battle between two bidders. The cryptocurrency investor group Constitution DAO initially claimed it had raised $40 million to buy the document, but later tweeted that it lost the auction. Outbidding them to buy what became the most expensive historical document ever to sell at auction was Americana collector and billionaire Ken Griffin, who later loaned it to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The document had formerly been in the collection of collector and philanthropist Dorothy Tapper Goldman. Last May, Griffin also bought another rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution, originally offered at Sotheby’s in 2022 with a $20-30 million estimate before being withdrawn. He eventually secured it through a private deal at an undisclosed pricem, and since May 27, it has been on public display at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York, timed with the country’s anniversary.
A Sotheby’s expert presents a page of the first printing of the United States Constitution.
ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images
Charles Willson Peale’s ‘George Washington at Princeton’
At Christie’s in 2006. Result: $21.3 million
The most expensive portrait of George Washington ever sold is Charles Willson Peale’s 1779 masterpiece George Washington at Princeton, one of eight full-length variations the artist painted between 1779 and 1781 and, notably, the only one in private hands as of the sale. Unlike later, idealized presidential portraits, the work, which depicts Washington on the Revolutionary War battlefield, was created as active war propaganda. Commissioned by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council for Independence Hall, the portrait was designed to project absolute confidence in American ideals and democracy’s cause. Peale himself fought alongside Washington at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, and every background detail in the painting is accurate to the period. In the single-owner sale of the J. Insley Blair collection, it set a world auction record for the highest price ever paid for an American portrait.
Charles Willson Peale’s George Washington at Princeton.
Courtesy Christie’s
An Abraham Lincoln-signed copy of the Thirteenth Amendment
At Sotheby’s in 2025. Result: $13.7 million.
President Abraham Lincoln signed an estimated 12 to 15 souvenir, or “Congressional,” copies of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery. Because the president’s signature wasn’t technically required for a constitutional amendment, Lincoln signed them only later, on February 1, 1865, as a ceremonial gesture to mark the legislative achievement. Nine of the copies are also co-signed by the senators and congressmen who voted for the amendment. A copy signed by Lincoln and 151 supporting lawmakers fetched $13.7 million in 2025, going once again to Griffin. Most of the surviving copies are in permanent museum and university collections, including the New-York Historical Society, Cornell University Library, the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and the Lincoln Memorial Undercroft Museum. At the same sale, Griffin also purchased a rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation for $4.4 million, bringing his total to an eyebrow-raising $18 million while setting a new record for the 1863 edict that freed enslaved people living in the Confederate states. According to a statement shared by Sotheby’s at the time, Griffin wanted to add the two documents to his collection because they marked a profound step forward, abolishing the scourge of slavery and advancing the ideal that all people are created equal. “As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we all have a part to play to strengthen and renew the promise of our nation,” he added. “Each generation must experience the sacred documents of our democracy—to learn from them and be inspired to carry our country forward.”
A rare copy of the Thirteenth Amendment signed by Abraham Lincoln sold at Sotheby’s New York for $13.7 million.
Courtesy Sotheby’s
Frederic Remington’s ‘Coming to the Call’
At Christie’s in 2026. Result: $13.2 million.
Frederic Remington is one of the most in-demand patriotic painters whose work falls naturally into the Americana category. Offered by Christie’s this past January in a landmark sale of billionaire Bill Koch’s collection of Western art, Remington’s oil painting fetched $13.3 million over its $6-8 million estimate, setting a world record for the artist and surpassing the benchmark set just minutes earlier. The painting was included in a show dedicated to Koch’s collection at the MFA in Boston in 2005, as well as in a major exhibition devoted to the artist that traveled from the National Gallery of Art in Washington to the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa and the Denver Art Museum. Described by Christie’s as the most important trove of Western American art ever offered at auction, Koch’s collection generated more than $84 million across its dedicated evening and day sales, exceeding the prior record for a single-owner Western art auction by more than three times.
Frederic Remington’s Coming to the Call achieved a record-setting $13,285,000 at Christie’s in January 2026.
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
Frederic Remington’s ‘An Argument with the Town Marshall’
At Christie’s in 2025. Result: $11.8 million.
Setting a new record for Remington just minutes before it was surpassed by the 1905 canvas described above, An Argument with the Town Marshall was an even more dramatic example of the visual storytelling that defined the most famous painter of the American frontier. Working in a near-monochrome palette with stark contrast, Remington depicted a solitary cowboy on horseback, in the dust, firing his pistol at an unseen adversary, perfectly encapsulating the dramatic tension of the Old West. It is an iconic image, later perpetuated and immortalized as a powerful archetype for the Wild West myth by American cinema. Accompanied by an equally extensive literature and exhibition history, it was shown in the same museum exhibitions as the other record-setting painting.
Frederic Remigton’s An Argument with the Town Marshall sold for $11,847,500.
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
Frederic Remington’s ‘Coming Through the Rye’
At Christie’s in 2017. Result: $11.2 million.
Remington’s previous record was set by one of his bronze sculptures, Coming Through the Rye, in 2017, when it sold for $11.2 million. (It remains the benchmark for a sculptural work by the artist.) The piece casts the viewer into the action with an almost cinematic force, its cowboys advancing on horseback and shooting exuberantly into the air. It’s pure drama and ideology—a writer for Collier’s Weekly described it in 1905 as four cowboys racing down a street at top speed, firing their guns purely for the thrill of being alive, fueled by frontier rum, with only five of their ponies’ hooves ever touching the ground at once though there are eight pairs in all. The sculpture’s first owner was Tiffany & Co.; the consignor acquired it in 1978 from James Graham & Sons in New York. More recently, a slightly smaller cast offered in Christie’s sale of the Koch collection achieved more than double its low estimate, selling for $9.95 million.
Frederic Remington’s
Coming Through the Rye sold for $11.2 million.
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
A signed official ratification copy of the U.S. Constitution
At Brunk Auctions in 2024. Result: $11.07 million.
A rare Official Signed Ratification Copy of the U.S. Constitution printed in 1787 sold in 2024 at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina, for $11.07 million, won by a bidder on the phone after a seven-minute battle. Only 100 copies of this broadsheet were originally printed in New York by John McLean for the Confederation Congress to send to the states for ratification. The only copy known to remain in private hands, it reemerged after sitting for centuries in an unassuming two-drawer metal filing cabinet at the Hayes Farm plantation in Edenton, North Carolina, which was once owned by Samuel Johnston, who served as governor of North Carolina from December 1787 to December 1789.
A 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution sold for more than $11 million at Brunk Auctions in Asheville in 2024.
Jeffrey Collins/Associated Press
George Washington’s annotated copy of the Acts of Congress, including the Constitution and Bill of Rights
At Christie’s in 2022. Result: $9.8 million.
In June 2022, Christie’s New York sold George Washington’s personal, annotated copy of the Acts of Congress from 1789 for a staggering $9,826,500—a world record for the highest price ever paid at auction for an American book or historical document. After a fierce bidding war, the buyer of this precious document at Christie’s was the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the nonprofit organization that owns and maintains Washington’s historic Virginia estate. Bound in gold-tooled leather for Washington during his first year as president, the 106-page volume contains the U.S. Constitution, a draft of the Bill of Rights and various legislative acts. What makes it even more valuable are Washington’s own handwritten marginal notes in which he specifically highlighted passages defining the powers, duties and responsibilities of the president. In near-pristine condition despite its 223 years, the book remained at Mount Vernon until 1876, when Washington’s descendants auctioned it off for a mere $13. After passing through the hands of prominent private collectors, including newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Americana collector H. Richard Dietrich Jr., the volume was returned to Mount Vernon, where it permanently resides at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.
George Washington’s personal, annotated copy of the Acts of Congress (1789) sold for $9.8 million at Christie’s in 2022.
Courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
An original Dunlap Declaration of Independence broadside
At Sotheby’s in 2000. Result: $8.1 million.
On the night of July 4, 1776, a Philadelphia printer named John Dunlap was handed a draft of what is arguably the most consequential document in American history and told to get it into print. He set type through the night, producing several hundred broadside copies of the manuscript that would be read aloud at town gatherings, nailed to posts and passed from hand to hand. Today 25 copies from that initial printing run are known to exist; all but four are in museums or public institutions. The auction record for any Declaration of Independence broadside was set at Sotheby’s in June 2000, when one of the original Dunlap broadsides, famously discovered hidden behind a $4 flea market painting in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, achieved $8.1 million. (The amateur collector found the document folded behind the canvas in 1989 after buying the painting because he wanted the frame; two years later he sold it at Sotheby’s for $2.4 million, then the highest price ever paid for a printed piece of American history at auction.) While not a recent result, the record-breaking sum suggests there is plenty of room for growth in this market.
The record-breaking Dunlap broadside on display at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in 2004.
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
A working draft of U.S. Constitution with edits by Rufus King
At Christie’s in 2026. Result: $7.4 million.
Also sold during the record-breaking Americana week at Christie’s this January was a rare printed working draft of the U.S. Constitution, annotated by Founding Father Rufus King, which achieved $7.395 million. King represented Massachusetts at the Constitutional Convention and served on the Committee of Style, which issued this draft for the delegates’ use during their debates; the copy sold by Christie’s belonged to King himself. The four-page document bears his handwritten marginal corrections and suggested alterations, all of which were incorporated into the final version of the Constitution printed on September 17, 1787. One of only 15 surviving copies of the Committee of Style draft, the document is also the earliest version to use the famous phrase “We the People of the United States.” Offered during the landmark We the People: America at 250 live auction celebrating the nation’s semiquincentennial, the final price more than doubled its initial $3-5 million estimate. Before the sale, in September, the document was displayed in a free exhibition at the King Manor Museum in Queens, Rufus King’s historic home. “This document, used by one of the delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, offers a first-hand glimpse into the mechanics of how the fundamental charter for our nation was produced,” Peter Klarnet, senior specialist for manuscript and printed Americana at Christie’s in New York, said in a statement.
An extremely rare working draft of the U.S. Constitution sold for $7,395,000 at a Christie’s New York auction in January 2026.
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
Charles Marion Russel’s ‘Dust’
At Christie’s in 2025. Result: $5.8 million.
Also part of Koch’s collection of Western art, Charles Marion Russell’s Dust fetched $5,809,000, setting a new artist record in January. Dubbed the “Cowboy Artist,” Russell created Dust when the historical, open-range American West had all but vanished. Rather than a simple action scene, the piece is an elegy to the myth and cultural memory that Russell helped define. Depicting a group of Native American riders on horseback gathered on a bluff above a river valley, with one central figure holding a raised spear against a pastel Western landscape, the canvas presents a masterful use of light that immerses the scene in a glowing atmosphere, both celebrating and emphasizing the vast wildness of the American territory and its romanticized frontier myth. While Russell painted when the historical West had already effectively vanished, he still evoked it in the idealized sublime of this epic scene. The painting was acquired by Koch from J.N. Bartfield Galleries, Inc., New York, in 1985 and has since been included in museum exhibitions of the collection at the Wichita Art Museum and Boston’s MFA.
Charles Marion Russell’s Dust sold for $5,809,000 at Christie’s in January 2026.
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
