If you were here last week, you might have seen my mention of the impending auction of one of the 17 known copies of the Magna Carta. Well, it looks like the auction is over, and my estimate was clearly far above the final bid.
A 710-year-old copy of the declaration of human rights known as the Magna Carta — the version that became part of English law — was auctioned Tuesday for $21.3 million, a Sotheby’s spokeswoman said.
Had I realized it would go for such a bargain-basement price, I probably would have flown to New York and put in a bid for it. You might not be able to put a price on freedom, but you can certainly put a price on the documentation which helped set up the modern understanding of freedom.