One of 13 remaining copies of the Official Edition of the Constitution. | Image: Sotheby’s
Say you want to buy an early printing of the US Constitution, but you’ve only got a couple of bucks. Normally, you’d be out of luck, but maybe not today: over the last week, a collective has formed to raise enough money to buy a rare early printing of the Constitution at auction, raising money from anyone who wants to chip in online.
The document is expected to sell at Sotheby’s for as high as $20 million — what would seem to be an insurmountable price for a crowdfunding initiative. And yet, somehow, the collective has raised $27 million to date. And they still have more than 24 hours to go.
There’s a lot going on here, so I’m just going to break it down piece by piece:
The document being purchased is one of 13 remaining copies of the…
