Charles Mason

Forty-five bidders battled for just under three minutes for ownership of what is perhaps the most consequential map in American history.

Bidding started at $400,000 for the survey of states divided by the Mason-Dixon line, finished in 1768 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

The sale was held online and in person at Brunk

Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina.

The 76-inch document could fetch $1.2 million.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon conducted the survey about a century before the Civil War to settle a Pennsylvania-Maryland border dispute.

The line later symbolized the divide between free and slaveholding states.

And finally, the McRib is back, but finding one may take some detective work.

The 76-inch document could fetch $1.2 million.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon conducted the survey about a century before the Civil War to settle a Pennsylvania-Maryland border dispute.

The line later symbolized the divide between free and slaveholding states.

And finally, the McRib is back, but finding one may take some detective work.

The hand-drawn chart of the Mason-Dixon line that eventually divided the free and slave states sold for $950,000.

Originally intended to settle a border dispute between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 1760s, Charles Mason's and Jeremiah Dixon's survey became synonymous with the fundamental divisions that exploded into civil war decades later.

Nina.

Thanks, Emily.

45 bidders battled just under three minutes for ownership of what is perhaps the most consequential map in American history.

Bidding started at $400,000 for the survey of states divided by the Mason-Dixon line finished in 1768 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

There's where we got the Mason-Dixon line.

Of course,

And an original hand-drawn map of the Mason-Dixon line will be auctioned today in Asheville.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon created the 76-inch manuscript in 1767 and 1768, defining the Maryland-Pennsylvania border that later symbolized the divide between northern and southern states.

Brunk auctions on Tunnel Road will open bidding at $500,000 when the live-streamed auction begins at 10 a.m. Christie's estimates it could bring up to $1.2 million.

Previously owned by Pennsylvania Chief Justice Benjamin Chu and publisher Malcolm Forbes, the privately held map later underwent extensive conservation at Colonial Williamsburg.