Going once . . . going twice . . . SOLD, for $950,000!

The auction took less than three minutes. And the winner walked away with an important map from American history. 

The map is the original hand-drawn chart of the Mason-Dixon line. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed this boundary. They finished in 1768. The line runs along the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Eventually, this line would divide states that allowed slavery (in the South) from those that outlawed it (in the North). 

The document went on sale Thursday. Forty-five bidders battled. Some bid online. Some bid in person at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina.

“It’s not that often that you can really get this close to something that is so historically important,” says Lauren Brunk. She is the vice president of Brunk Auctions.

The original map had nothing to do with slavery. Back then, Maryland and Pennsylvania weren’t states yet. They were colonies. And their leaders couldn’t agree about where each colony started and stopped. The line settled the argument. 

Fast forward to 1820. Lawmakers used the line to make a law called the Missouri Compromise. That law outlawed slavery north of the Mason-Dixon line.

“The Mason-Dixon Line that most Americans know is this dividing line between the northern free states and the southern slaveholding states,” Ms. Brunk says. “But the line was not drawn for that reason.” Still, it identified two sides. Those sides would oppose each other in the Civil War.

The map is a strip of paper. Originally, it was backed with linen. Now it is backed with Japanese rice paper. It measures more than six feet across and is six-and-a-half inches tall. 

In 1982, publisher Malcolm S. Forbes bought it at auction. He outbid the Library of Congress. The price? Just $360,000. At the time, it was said to have been the highest price ever paid at auction for an American map.

In Thursday’s auction, bidding started at $400,000 before reaching almost $1 million. The buyer remains anonymous for now. 

Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. — Matthew 12:25