PHILADELPHIA (KYW) - The American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston has some notes of Ben Franklin’s the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia would like. The Philosophical Society, meanwhile, has a book of John Adams’ the Academy wouldn’t mind.
So, the historical societies are putting the items on the line and letting the Patriots and Eagles decide on Sunday who gets what.
If New England wins the Super Bowl, Adams’ personal copy of a book he wrote goes to Boston. And if Philadelphia wins, a collection of Franklin’s personal manuscripts return to the city where he spent most of his life.
“We thought it was time for Franklin to lend his support to the cause,“ says Patrick Spero, a librarian at the APS in Philadelphia. “We think that Franklin, if he were alive today, would be rooting for the Eagles.”
To make things interesting for Sunday’s game, Spero and his team at the APS reached out to their correspondents at the Academy in Boston and agreed on a wager.
If Patriots quarterback Tom Brady secures his sixth championship with New England, not only will he likely cement his legacy as the greatest of all-time, he’ll bring the personal copy of Adams’ “A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” back to the Boston luminary’s home city.
And at stake for the Eagles, in addition to a first Super Bowl title as a franchise, are some personal notes outlining Franklin's experiments with electricity, a rare set of his documents not already in Philadelphia.
“We will have anything by Franklin,” said Robert Hauser, the executive officer of the Philosophical Society. “We already have 70 percent of his papers, but why not more?”
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