The Repeal
The Stamp Act was the first tax Parliament laid directly on the colonies, and the first it took back. Franklin, in London as Pennsylvania's agent, had argued against it, then misjudged the fury it raised, then redeemed himself in February 1766 with four hours of testimony before the Commons that helped carry the repeal. The King's printer, Mark Baskett, issued the act in the sessional folio in which all statutes appeared; the two leaves of the repeal are the piece of paper that ended the crisis.
Six copies are recorded, and the act has appeared at auction six times. This one is the cover of Catalog IV, where the objects of the Stamp Act year — the tax stamp itself, the Liberty Tree lantern, the obelisk print — stand around it. The repeal settled nothing, and everyone on both sides knew it; that is why the collection keeps the paper.
Stamp Act Repeal
The repeal, as enacted: the official folio printing of the Act that undid the Stamp Act, pages 243–244 of the session, with its printed cover. A fine copy in a custom clamshell case. The Declaratory Act that accompanied it is the reason the celebrations of May 1766 were premature by ten years.