A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution, printed 237 years ago and sent to the states for ratification, will be auctioned Thursday evening in North Carolina.
Brunk Auctions is selling the copy – the only one of its kind believed to be in private hands. The minimum bid of $1 million has already been made. There is no minimum price that must be reached.
This copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of national government in 1787 and sent it to Congress of the ineffective government. first American administration under the Articles of Confederation, requesting that it be sent to the States to be ratified by the people.
It is one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that conference, Charles Thomson. Only eight are known to still exist and the remaining seven are publicly owned.
Thomson probably signed two copies for each of the original thirteen states, essentially certifying them.
What happened to the document up for auction between Thomson’s signature and 2022 is unknown.
Two years ago, a property once owned by Samuel Johnston was evicted in Edenton, eastern North Carolina. He served as governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and during his final year in office oversaw the state convention that ratified the Constitution.
The copy was found in a small metal filing cabinet with two drawers and a can of stain on it, in a long-neglected room full of old chairs and a dusty bookcase, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a wide sheet that could be folded once like a book.
Along with the Constitution, the wide sheet of paper on the front and back contains a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged that compromises will have to be made and that the rights enjoyed by states will have to be given up for the long-term health of the country.
Auction officials aren’t sure what the document could be for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution sent to the states was sold was in 1891 for $400. In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York said sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 milliona record for a book or document.
Other items up for auction in Asheville include a first draft of the Articles of Confederation from 1776 and a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough, where representatives spent two weeks debating whether to ratify the Constitution would place too much power in the hands of the nation rather than the state. states.
The auction was originally scheduled for September 28, but the auction house subsequently postponed it Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage throughout Asheville and the rest of the North Carolina mountains.