The US Constitution is up for auction for $15 million

A very rare original copy of the US Constitution signed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787 will soon be auctioned in New York with an estimated value of between 15 and 20 million dollars, Sotheby's announced.

Sotheby's presents a special set of American constitutional documents dating back to the revolutionary era, between 1776 and 1789, including the famous Constitutional Charter signed in Philadelphia by the "founding fathers" of the United States of America, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison.

Selby Kiefer, a Sotheby's historian specializing in antiques and manuscripts, asserted that it was "a fine first printed copy of the Constitution of the United States, probably printed on the evening of September 16, 1787."

It is a "very rare" document, as only "11 known copies remain", while "five hundred" copies were probably printed, according to Kiefer, on the occasion of the 234th anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution.

Sotheby's estimated the price of this document, which will be auctioned in late November, between 15 and 20 million dollars.

Kiefer does not fear that this copy of the Constitution, the only one still owned by a private individual and American collector Dorothy Taber Goldman, will go abroad, even if he thinks that the document in very good condition will remain in the United States.

Sotheby's presents this collection of the history of the US Constitution in an atmosphere fraught with tension and polarization in the country. 

The constitutional text begins with the famous sentence "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union... proclaim this Constitution to the United States of America."

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news