Mason-Dixon Line manuscript survey up for auction

Tomorrow, a piece of American history goes up for sale as a hand-drawn manuscript survey of the Mason-Dixon line is auctioned off. Joining us this morning to talk about this historic document and its significance, Lauren Brunk with Brunk Auctions. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, Dave. It's great to be here. I see it there behind you. For history buffs like myself, that's an amazing piece of history. I agree that... I know it existed, frankly. I mean, it makes sense that obviously these things would have been surveyed. Tell us a little about the history about the survey. Sure. Well, I think a lot of people associate the Mason-Dixon line with the Civil War, but in actual fact, the survey was drawn to settle a boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and that was before the Revolutionary War. Sure. So this is actually before there was an America, this document was drawn and it was given to the local governments and it sort of stayed in private hands and for quite a long time. Came out. It was sold into the Forbes collection. It was sold to a private collection. And so it will come back onto the market tomorrow and we'll we'll see what happens. But it's a it's a kind of multilayered object, not just the story of the revolution, but also the Civil War. And then, you know, here we are in the 250th. So it touches down in some very interesting places. It really does, and it's amazing to me that it... That it has been in private hands all this time and would be now. How common is something as significant to U.S. history being privately sold like this? How common is something like that? You know, it's not that uncommon. There are people that collect. Manuscript maps that collect, you know, documents that are important to the sort of foundational times of the country. The nice thing is many of those people that are collectors are also willing to share them publicly at loaning them to institutions and so on. So one of the funny moments for this map was that apparently when Malcolm Forbes was bidding, so was the Library of Congress and Forbes beat them out. Yeah. That's a big win when that happens. I love it. Yeah. It's a fascinating document to me, too, as opposed to other historical documents because of the work that went behind it. I sometimes think about maps being made and surveys being taken in centuries gone by and just marveling at how that work was able to be done. That seems to me to be something that would be tricky to do with the equipment we have today, let alone hundreds of years ago. And this map actually is remarkably close to the 40th parallel that it was supposed to be surveying. The Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had custom made instruments that were made in London that were sent over with them. So these were two English surveyors that were sent by the crown to settle this dispute, but they brought with them the best technology from the country that was the most advanced in terms of navigation. So this was almost like land navigation. to create this parallel and then they also marked all of the geographic positions on the map and then you see at the end where it stops and it stops at a Native American war path and that is because many of the people working with them to cut the sight lines and carry the instruments were actually from Native tribes and they themselves had their own treaties and they couldn't go any further. And the survey stopped right there. I mean, again, so much history just associated with this document goes up for auction tomorrow. We've had the website up on the screen. Is that the best place to either track it or if someone's feeling, I mean, could someone put a bid in around here if they've got enough money burning a hole in their pocket? If, if not from Texas, then from where, right? Okay. So, um, absolutely. You can look at our website, which is brunkauctions.com. You can also watch it live tomorrow. And if you have any questions, even if you're not really a serious bidder, we, we welcome that. We love to share this with folks. Wonderful. Again, such an interesting thing for any student of history, Warren Brunk from Brunk Auctions. Good luck with the big auction tomorrow. And we appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you. So nice to talk with you.