This Copy Of The Constitution Is About To Head To Auction, Where It’s Expected To Fetch $30 Million Dollars
A copy of the U.S Constitution is going up for sale in December at Sotheby’s, a New York auction house.
It is among one out of thirteen copies known to have survived throughout the decades. And it’s also one out of two that’s still privately owned.
The other copy has been in the hands of Kenneth Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, since last November. He then loaned it to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for their exhibit.
Ken acquired the document by outbidding an organization named ConstitutionDAO. He bought it for a whopping $43.2 million, breaking the record for any type of text or book sold at auction.
“The unprecedented sale result we achieved for the Constitution last November was a truly unique and inspired moment…,” said Richard Austin in a press release. He is the global head of manuscripts and books at Sotheby’s.
According to Richard, that moment signifies ‘the enduring importance and influence of the Constitution’ even over 200 years after it was first written.
The rest of the copies reside in institutional and governmental collections, including the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library of Congress, and the New Jersey State Archives.
Now, the historical document about to head to auction in the coming weeks is expected to sell for up to $30 million.
Since this particular copy hasn’t appeared in auction for over 125 years, it’s considered to be extremely rare.
James Steidl – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual copy
The last time it was seen at auction was in Philadelphia in 1894 when it was part of Charles Colcock Jones’s collection. He was a politician, a lawyer, and a self-proclaimed amateur historian from Georgia.
It wound up being purchased as a gift for businessman and collector Adrian Van Sinderen, which encouraged him to pursue an interest in American history and books.
Ever since then, the document has remained in the Van Sinderen family until now.
It’s exciting and rather unexpected that another copy of the Constitution is up for sale just a year after the sale of a separate one.
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