Historic Mason-Dixon survey chart hits market with $1.2 million ceiling

A hand-drawn survey chart of the Mason-Dixon Line is scheduled to go to auction on Thursday. The document, remounted on Japanese rice paper, will be sold through a livestream event hosted by Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina.

Lauren Brunk, vice president of the firm, projects the anonymous seller will receive between $800,000 and $1.2 million. She described the physical proximity to the artifact as rare and awe-inspiring.

The survey was conducted by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to resolve a border dispute between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. It later gained national prominence when the 1820 Missouri Compromise used the line to delineate the limits of slavery. Brunk noted that while the line is known as the divider between northern free states and southern slaveholding states, it was not originally drawn for that purpose.

The physical document is a linen-backed strip measuring 76 inches long and 6.5 inches tall. It entered private hands after being given to the family of Benjamin Chew, an attorney who represented the descendants of Pennsylvania founder William Penn. The map remained with the family until 1982.

In 1982, publisher Malcolm S. Forbes purchased the map for $360,000, outbidding the Library of Congress. At the time, that sum was reported as the highest price ever paid at auction for an American map. The artifact changed ownership again in 2002. A separate vertical section depicting the Delaware-Maryland border is currently housed at Princeton University.

Brunk contacted Library of Congress officials to inform them of the upcoming sale. The library indicated that current budget constraints prevented them from placing a bid. However, Brunk stated that the institution would welcome the item if a private buyer acquired it on the library's behalf.

The term Dixie is often linked to the surveyor Dixon, though historians dispute that specific origin. The auction marks the latest entry for the chart in a market where rare American documents frequently command six-figure sums.