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 Announcing the upcoming sale of
the document on the 234th anniversary of its
signing by delegates to the Constitutional
Convention, Sotheby's estimated its value at $15
million to $20 million.
"It's the official printing, the first printing
of the final text of the United States
Constitution done probably on the evening of the
16th of September, 1787, only for the use of the
delegates to the Continental Convention and for
the use of the Congress of the United States,"
said Sotheby's Senior Specialist for Books and
Manuscripts, Selby Kiffer.
"This is the only one that is not in a permanent
institutional collection."
It last sold for $165,000 in 1988, when it was
acquired by the late S. Howard Goldman, a New
York real estate developer and private collector
of American autographs, historical documents and
manuscripts.
His wife, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, is offering it
for sale, with all proceeds going to the
charitable foundation established in her name to
further the public's understanding of democracy,
the auction house said.
Copies from that first printing, bearing no
signatures and believed to have originally
numbered about 500, were furnished to delegates
of the Constitutional Convention. Two surviving
copies are housed at the Library of Congress.
The Constitution's first printing is
considerably rarer than even the first edition
of the 1776 Declaration of Independence,
Sotheby's said.
It contains only the seven original articles
laying out the framework for the U.S. national
government and its powers, its relationship to
the states, and procedures used to subsequently
ratify and amend the Constitution itself.
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 The Bill of Rights, consisting
of the first 10 amendments added to the
Constitution, did not come until 1791.
Although not signed, the six-page document
includes a list of the Constitutional Convention
delegates attesting to its adoption in 1787 and
a letter of submission from George Washington,
who presided over the convention.
Regarded as the oldest, continuing codified
government charter in the world, the U.S.
Constitution was devised to replace the young
nation's first, largely inefficient charter, the
Articles of Confederation.
It was ratified by the states in 1788 and went
into effect the following year. It has since
been amended 27 times.
Sotheby's said the Goldman copy would be offered
for bid at a New York event sometime in
November.
"There were vivid debates about whether it
should be ratified or not," Kiffer said. "And
those debates continue today. It's the
foundational document that's going to last, I
think, long beyond the current political
atmosphere."
(Reporting by Dan Fastenberg; Editing by Diane
Craft)
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