A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution printed in 1787 and sent to the North Carolina governor for ratification is expected to be sold for millions on Thursday.
The minimum bid of $1 million has already been placed.
Brunk Auctions, a consignment-based auction house based in Asheville, North Carolina, announced it is auctioning a ratified copy of the U.S. Constitution.
The broadsheet document was discovered in a metal filing cabinet in a cluttered room at the Hayes Plantation in Edenton, North Carolina, where “two of the state’s most prominent families” lived for up to seven generations, Brunk Auctions said in a September press release. The auction was originally planned for Sept. 28 before Hurricane Helene hit Asheville.
The Constitution was the property of Samuel Johnston, governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789. Johnston presided over the North Carolina state convention that ratified the document in his last year in office.
Brunk Auctions said that in 1787, Secretary of the Confederation Congress Charles Thomson—whose signature can be seen on the document—was “tasked with the ratification of the new Constitution.”
“To that end, he ordered the issuance of the printed archetype for sending to the legislatures of the original states for ratification,” the auction house said. “Only 100 archetype Constitutions were printed in New York, by McLean, between September 28th and 29th, 1787.”
Thomson signed only a few, and eight of those copies have been located. Brunk Auctions’ copy is the ninth.
“While the dramatically signed version of the Constitution on display in the National Archives is the one ingrained in our collective conscience, it is this simple-looking version that actually allowed for ratification,” Brunk Auctions said. “According to James Madison, the Constitution ‘was nothing more than a draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through several State Conventions.’”
The document was printed and sent to Congress operating under the Constitution’s predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, where it was proposed that it be sent to the states to be ratified.
In 1891, a copy of the Constitution sent to the states was sold for $400. In 2021, one of the 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed exclusively for the Continental Congress and its delegates was sold for $43.2 million.
Brunk Auctions will also be taking bids on—among other historical artifacts—a 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation, an 1808 Price-Strother Map of North Carolina, documents connected to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and colonial currency.
“You know what’s important about this, in terms of the rarity and value, is that this isn’t just a documented record that’s out there in the public,” said Seth Kaller, historical document appraiser and collector.
“This is one that was officially signed, and therefore, it was part of the process of making the Constitution happen.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
