A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution sells for US$9 million at auction

A 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million is displayed at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (Jeffrey Collins / AP Photo)

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -

A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution printed 237 years ago and sent to the states to be ratified was sold for US$9 million at an auction Thursday evening in North Carolina.

Brunk Auctions sold the document, the only copy of its type thought to be privately owned, at a private auction. The name of the buyer was not immediately released.

Bidding took just over seven minutes, with bids coming in at US$500,000 intervals mostly over the phone. There was a pause at US$8.5 million, then another after someone on the phone bid $9 million.

“Just another second or two. Savour it a little bit selling here at nine million,” said auctioneer and auction house owner Andrew Brunk.

Brunk was thankful. The auction was originally set for Sept. 28 but was delayed after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage throughout Asheville and western North Carolina.

“It's a privilege to have it here. It's been quite a ride,” Brunk said.

The copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people.

A Brunk auction employee waits to see if a bidder on the phone wants to make a bid during an auction that included a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned.

Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them.

What happened to the document up for auction Thursday between Thomson's signature and 2022 is not known.

Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution.

The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty book case, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book.

Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet printed front and back is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that certain rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation's long-term health.

The Constitution copy wasn’t the only seven-figure purchase Thursday. A watermarked 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation went for US$1 million.

Also sold for US$85,000 was a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough where representatives spent two weeks debating whether ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the federal government instead of the states.

Auction officials were not sure what the Constitution document would go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution that was sent to the states sold, it was for US$400 in 1891.

In 2021, Sotheby's of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for US$43.2 million, a record for a book or document.