The sale makes it the most expensive historical document to be bought at auction. It also broke the auction record for a book, manuscript or printed text.

The document is one of 13 surviving copies and one of only two in private hands. It dates back to the first printing of the final text which was produced for delegates of the Constitutional Convention and Continental Congress in 1787.

Sotheby’s said that two parties had been involved in a “nearly eight-minute bidding battle” for the document, The Times reports.