‘Every time I have it in my hands, I still get goose bumps’: Rare copy of Constitution up for auction

Tucked away in an old, unremarkable, metal filing cabinet in a North Carolina mansion for decades and discovered by accident, a rare original copy of the United States Constitution is up for auction this week — and it could sell for millions.
The happenstance discovery occurred two years ago, when an antiques appraiser was hired to determine the value of the historic Hayes Farm property, a “184-acre plantation in Edenton once owned by Samuel Johnston,” per CBS News. Johnston, who served as the state’s sixth governor from 1787 to 1789 and was later elected to the U.S. Senate, “chaired the 1788 and 1789 state conventions that were convened to ratify the federal constitution,” according to the National Governors Association.
During his appraisal of Hayes Farm in 2022, Ken Farmer opened a folder that had been stored in a dusty filing cabinet, and discovered a document that he immediately recognized to be printed in either the 18th or 19th century, The New York Times reported. As he further analyzed the thin, creased document, he began to realize the significance of what he’d discovered; “I’ve never found anything this exciting,” Farmer said. Per the Times, the well-preserved, ratified version is signed by Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress during the Constitutional Convention.
The copy found at Hayes Farm was dated in 1787 and is “one of the first copies of the Constitution that Congress sent to the original 13 colonies for ratification,” according to The Washington Post.
“Every time I have it in my hands, I still get goose bumps,” Andrew Brunk, president of Brunk Auctions, told the Post. “This is far and away the most exciting thing that we’ve ever come upon.”
Brunk Auctions will place the relic of American history up for auction in Asheville, North Carolina, on Saturday, Sept. 28, “the 237th anniversary of the day Congress passed the ratification resolution,” a press release from the company reads.
According to Brunk Auctions, the last sale on record of a similar document was in 1891 and the version up for auction this week is one of eight surviving copies of its kind — and the sole copy known to be in private hands. Bidding will start at $1 million for the roughly 237-year-old document, but experts believe it will fetch an even heftier price tag.