One of only eight surviving ratified copies of the U.S. Constitution discovered in an old filing cabinet in a home in Edenton will soon be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Officials with the North Carolina-based auction house Brunk Auctions say the starting price is $1 million but it's expected to go for much more than that.
It is only one of eight known surviving signed ratification copies of the document, and the sale, which takes place on Sept. 28, is the last and only other recorded sale of a similar document since 1891.
Only a fraction of the 100 copies of the Constitution were signed by then-Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson before they were sent to the 13 original colonies to be ratified, and the auction house said that resolution, along with Thomson’s signature, makes the present copy an official ratified edition of the Constitution.
The copy of the Constitution will be auctioned on the 237th anniversary of the day Congress passed the ratification resolution.
