Rare copy of the US Constitution fetches $9 million at auction

A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution printed 237 years ago sold for $9 million at an auction in North Carolina on Thursday.

The copy, which was sold by Brunk Auctions, began with a starting bid of $50,000 but it took just minutes for the price to reach $9 million. There were 62 bids in total.

AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, file

The document was printed in New York on Sept. 28, 1787, right after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the Constitution, according to Brunk Auctions.

The copy is thought to be one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson. Only eight or nine copies are known to have survived, seven of which are publicly owned, the auction house said.

Also sold at the action was "The Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough," a 1788 document detailing the meetings representatives had for two weeks while debating if ratifying the Constitution would give too much power to the federal government.

In 2021, one of the 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates at the Constitutional Convention was sold by Sotheby's of New York for a record-breaking $43.2 million, the Associated Press reported.