Amazing stuff!
"British researchers have discovered that a ‘copy’ of Magna Carta owned by Harvard Law School is in fact an extraordinarily rare original from 1300.
The discovery by leading Magna Carta experts from King’s College London and the University of East Anglia (UEA) means the document, which Harvard Law School acquired in the 1940s, is just one of just seven from King Edward I’s 1300 issue of Magna Carta that still survive. ...
The Harvard Law School Library bought the document known as ‘HLS MS 172’ in 1946 for a sum of $27.50, according to the library’s accession register. The auction catalogue described the manuscript as a “copy … made in 1327 … somewhat rubbed and damp-stained.” It had been purchased a month or so earlier by the London bookdealers Sweet & Maxwell, via Sotheby’s, from a Royal Air Force war hero for a mere £42. ..."
