1776 Saur Bible, First Bible Printed in America With American Made Typeset. The Gun-Wad Bible
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1776 Saur Bible, First Bible Printed in America With American made Typeset. The Gun-Wad Bible
Due to the restrictive terms of the Bible Patent, and English law designed to keep an accurate text and produce revenue for the sovereign, the printing of Bibles in English was restricted to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the sovereign’s printer, and sometimes to the Stationers’ Company. This law applied to all English territories, so printers in the American Colonies were not allowed to print the Bible in English. Thus the earliest printed biblical texts in America are not in English
Christoph Saur (1693–1758) printed the first European language Bible in America, using Fraktur (a German style of black letter) type obtained from the Luther Foundry of Frankfurt, Germany.
It took three years to complete the printing and the edition was 1200 copies at a price of 18 shillings.
For the poor, Saur wrote, "we have no price."
Christoph Saur II (1721–84) continued his father’s work, and produced the second Saur Bible in 1763 in an edition of 2000 copies. It is the first Bible printed in America on American-made paper. Christoph Saur I
The third Saur Bible also know as the Gun Wad Bible is also a first: the first Bible printed from American made type. The type was manufactured by Justus Fox at the Saur type foundry in Germantown. He Gun-Wad Bible is consider a rare Bible because it was printed just prior to the battle of Germantown in the American during the Revolution. Saur had originally produced 3000 copies of this edition but the vast majority of them were destroyed by the occupying British soldiers who used the sheets for firewood and horse bedding, but primarily as cartridge paper or "gun-wad". According to contemporary accounts, all of the Bibles of this edition were destroyed with the exception of 10 copies said to have been saved by Saur's daughter Catherine. While this number has never been confirmed it is unquestionable that the surviving copies numbered as few.
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Accompanied with Certificate of Authenticity from the Christian Heritage Museum
www.christianheritiagemuseum.com
