Constitution Auctioned: Copy Owned By George Washington To Go On Sale

The personal copy of the United States Constitution owned by George Washington, where he took notes on the manuscript, will be auctioned later this month, auction house Christie's said Wednesday.

The annotated copy from 1789 is the Constitution and Bill of Rights signed by George Washington during the first year as the first U.S. President. Complete with handwritten notes, the Constitution book is three-quarters of an inch think and also has a list of responsibilities of the President written in the margins and a personal bookplate of Washington's family crest.

According to Christie's the copy of the Constitution for sale is expected to sell for between $2 and $3 million when the document is offered to bidders on June 22. The book went on display in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday and will make its way to an exhibit in New York before the sale.

It's a remarkable ensemble of text, Christie's senior specialist of the manuscripts department Chris Coover said. We can learn a great deal from the first president and his accomplishments. It says a lot about the man and the era.

The copy of George Washington's Constitution came from the estate of H. Richard Dietrich Jr., who was a prominent collector of colonial American art.

Similarly, Christie's auctioned off a signed manuscript of Abraham Lincoln's victory speech from 1864, which went for more than $3 million in the 2009 auction.