Rare Copy of Constitution Sold at Auction

 

 The National Archives 

On October 17, 2024, a rare privately owned copy of the U.S. Constitution was sold at auction by Brunks Auctions of Asheville, North Carolina for $9 million.  The final bid far outstripped the reserve price of $1 million.  The bidding lasted seven minutes and bids came in at $500,000 intervals.

This rare artifact is one of the 100 official copies printed in 1787 that were sent to state leaders for review before being formally adopted, and is among only eight copies known to exist today, and is the only one still in private hands.  The document was sold to an anonymous bidder.

The almost 237 year old document was found inside a battered filing cabinet in a long neglected storage room on a property in Edenton, North Carolina once owned by the state’s first governor Samuel Johnston.  Johnston was governor from 1787 to 1789, and oversaw the state convention that ratified the Constitution.  Also found with the copy of the Constitution was an original letter from George Washington asking for ratification!