A rare copy of the 1787 US Constitution is being auctioned

ASHEVILLE, NC — Appraiser and historical document collector Seth Kaller spreads out a broad sheet of paper on a desk. It's in such good condition that he can carefully handle it with clean, bare hands. It has only a few creases and tiny discolorations, despite being dated just a few weeks ago, 237 years ago, and having spent who knows how long in a filing cabinet in North Carolina.

At the top of the first page are familiar words, but in normal font and not in the flowing Fraktur script that we are used to: “WE, the people…”

And citizens will have the opportunity to bid on this copy of the U.S. Constitution – believed to be the only one of its kind in private hands – at a Brunk Auctions auction on September 28 in Asheville, North Carolina.

The auction's minimum bid of $1 million has already been placed. There is no reserve price to be reached.

This copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 completed drafting the proposed framework for American government and sent it to Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation with a request that it be sent to the states for popular ratification.

It is one of about 100 copies printed by the then Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson. Only eight copies still exist, the other seven are in public possession.

Thomson probably signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially ratifying them. They were sent to special ratification conventions, where delegates—all white men—wrestled for months before accepting the structure of the U.S. government that remains in place today.

“This is the connecting point between government and the people. The preamble – 'We the people' – is the moment when the government asks the people to give it power,” said auctioneer Andrew Brunk.

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

Two years ago, in Edenton, in eastern North Carolina, a property once owned by Samuel Johnston was vacated. He served as governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and, in his final year in office, presided over the state convention that ratified the Constitution.

The copy was found in a squat metal filing cabinet with two drawers and a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room filled with old chairs and a dusty bookcase before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet of paper that could be folded once like a book.

“I get calls every week from people who think they have a Declaration of Independence or a Gettysburg Address. Most of the time it's just a replica, but every now and then something important is found,” says Kaller, who values, buys and sells historical documents.

“This is of a whole new importance,” he added.

Alongside the Constitution, on the large sheet of paper printed front and back, is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification, acknowledging that compromises would have to be made and that states' rights would have to be sacrificed for the long-term health of the nation.

“To secure to each the right of independent sovereignty, and yet to provide for the welfare and safety of all, individuals entering society must surrender a portion of their liberty to preserve the rest,” wrote the man who would become the first president of the United States.

Brunk isn't sure what the document might sell for, since there are so few like it. The last time such a copy of the Constitution sold was in 1891 for $400. In 2021, Sotheby's in New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million – a record for a book or document.

But this document was actually intended for distribution to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The signed copy, which will be sold later this month, was actually intended to be sent to politicians in every state so that people across the country could review it and decide if that was how they wanted to be governed. This connected the authors of the Constitution to the people in the states who would give it power and legitimacy.

The seller is not named in the auction list; it is merely part of a collection that is privately owned.

Other items up for auction in Asheville include a first draft of the Articles of Confederation from 1776 and a journal of the North Carolina Assembly at Hillsborough from 1788. There, lawmakers debated for two weeks whether ratifying the Constitution would give the federal government too much power rather than the states.