Okay, can somebody explain to me how someone ACCIDENTALLY bought a 700-year-old copy of the Magna Carta?
Harvard Law School, which famously has billions of dollars to play with, went cheap by spending $27 to buy a copy of the Magna Carta to display at the law school.
And by some bizarre mistake, they bought AN ORIGINAL COPY!
'I was just working at home… looking for unofficial copies of Magna Carta and finding quite a lot of them,' David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King's College London, told CNN Thursday, recounting the moment he made the discovery.
'I finally came to Harvard Law School manuscript number 172, clicked on that, expecting to see a statute book. And what I saw… was an original of the 1300 Magna Carta,' Carpenter said.
They just had it put away in the archives somewhere, collecting dust, believing it was just some run-of-the-mill knockoff copy that someone in the department got for $27.50 on clearance.
But it was a 7-century-old, real-deal copy of the document that lies at the foundation of western law.
When you think about it, it really is quite the metaphor for Harvard Law, isn't it?
The academics believe that the Harvard document is one of just seven from King Edward I's 1300 issue of Magna Carta that still survive ...
Harvard's Law School Library bought the document in 1946 via auction from London bookdealers Sweet & Maxwell, according to its accession register. The auction catalogue described the manuscript as a 'copy…made in 1327… somewhat rubbed and damp-stained,' a press release announcing the discovery said. The London bookdealers had only owned it for a short time, having bought it from World War I pilot Air Vice Marshal Maynard, who'd inherited it from two leading campaigners against the slave trade.
This is actually an awesome discovery and one of the coolest piece's of Western Civilization and Christendom.
And for $27.50, that's quite the steal, even in 1946 money!
Harvard had to meet a high bar to prove authenticity, Carpenter said, and it did so 'with flying colors.'
Its tattered and faded copy of the Magna Carta is worth millions of dollars, Carpenter estimated — though Harvard has no plans to sell it. A 1297 version of the Magna Carta sold at auction in 2007 for $21.3 million.
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