
How Do You Buy the Magna Carta? (2013) - danso
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/12/11/so-how-do-you-buy-the-magna-carta-billionaire-david-rubenstein-explains
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itcrowd
> How Do You Buy The Magna Carta?

Just like any other precious arts and documents, at an auction. Title does not
fit the article well.

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suby
It seems strange and wrong to me that the document be housed in America and
not in England.

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benj111
There are multiple copies of the Magna Carta, I've seen one in Lincoln Castle.

But yeah it does seem weird, as some of it is still law. I don't know the
technicalities, but if you have a law, but no written record of the law or of
it being agreed, is it still law?

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pjc50
There is a written record of it .. it's just not an "original".

(For those who want to read the statutes "with the patches applied", as it
were, Blackstones have done the work:
[https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/b/blackstones...](https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/b/blackstones-
statute-series-blsb/?type=listing&lang=en&cc=gb) ; I remember there was
something like one sentence of Magna Carta still in effect, but I can't
remember which!)

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benj111
"it's just not an "original"."

So how does that work. If we sign a contract and I lose mine, it doesn't cease
to be binding, but good luck trying to convince a court of it's contents.

Is it the same here? Could someone turn up with the 'true' Magna Carta and
rewrite the law? Or does it exist as a kind of fossil in other laws?

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pjc50
Objects with text on them aren't magic; we have no shortage of records of what
it says.

It's very rare that contract disputes involve a serious disagreement over what
the contents of a written contract were. Litigants submit their version under
penalty of perjury. Mostly questions involve either verbal contracts or
questions of whether additional material (specs, advertising copy) is part of
the contract.

