(Reuters) – An extremely rare official first-edition printed copy of the U.S. Constitution, as adopted by America’s founding fathers at a convention in Philadelphia in 1787, will be put up for bid by Sotheby’s in mid-November, the auction house announced on Friday. Sotheby’s, announcing the upcoming sale of the document on the 234th anniversary of its signing by delegates to the Constitutional Convention, estimated its value at $15 million to $20 million. Copies from that first printing, bearing no signatures and believed to have originally numbered about 500, were also furnished to delegates of the Constitutional Convention itself. The Constitution’s first printing is considerably rarer than even the first edition of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, Sotheby’s said. “The Goldman Constitution ranks as one of the most rare and coveted historical documents that has ever come to auction,” Selby Kiffer, senior specialist in Sotheby’s books & manuscripts department, said in a statement.

Source: MetroXpress September 17, 2021 12:56 UTC