Harvard’s $27.50 copy of a seminal legal document turns out to be an original

That feeling when you stumble across misplaced money sitting in a drawer: Harvard University recently discovered it’s sitting on a parchment gold mine, after two British researchers verified a copy of the Magna Carta purchased by the university for $27.50 in 1946 is, in fact, an extremely rare original version.

What is the Magna Carta? Like Ron Burgundy, it’s a bit of a big deal. The “Great Charter,” which asserts the king is subject to the law and recognizes limits in his power, has influenced constitutions globally, including in the US, where text of the charter is incorporated into the country’s founding documents as well as 17 state constitutions.

• The Magna Carta was originally written in 1215, and periodically reissued. Researchers believe ~200 individual Magna Carta parchments with the royal seal were released into the wild up until 1300.
• Harvard’s is thought to be one of the latest issued, and is one of only 25 original documents still in existence.

It’s probably worth a lot: The last time a Magna Carta was publicly sold was in 2007, when a version from 1297 previously owned by billionaire and two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot fetched $21.3 million at auction.

Zoom out: The discovery comes at an interesting time for Harvard. The university is locked in a legal battle with the Trump admin over billions in frozen funding, and also facing a separate DOJ investigation into its admissions process.