[HN Gopher] Harvard Law paid $27 for a copy of Magna Carta. It's...
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Harvard Law paid $27 for a copy of Magna Carta. It's an original
Author : jgwil2
Score : 132 points
Date : 2025-05-15 18:26 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://archive.today/DOZw1
| perihelions wrote:
| It may be that Harvard students no longer habeant corpus, but
| they do habent a corpus of "habeas corpus" corpses.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| I haven't Latin'd in forever, but here's an attempt:
|
| _Harvardis alumnis corpus non habent sed quidem corpus de
| "habeas corpus" habent._
|
| (Let's just say "Harvard" is a third declension noun because
| why not.)
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Pig Latin would be more fitting for the current climate.
| fsckboy wrote:
| orcuspae atinuslae
| tootie wrote:
| Veritas
| skirmish wrote:
| Did you mean: Veritas socialis?
| skissane wrote:
| > Let's just say "Harvard" is a third declension noun because
| why not.
|
| Given Harvard maintains the tradition of Latin addresses (the
| Latin Salutatory), I'm sure they have an official position on
| what their name is in Latin. Wikipedia cites this article but
| not sure if it is online: Hammond, Mason (Summer 1987).
| "Official Terms in Latin and English for Harvard College or
| University". Harvard Library bulletin. Vol. XXXV, no. 3.
| Harvard University. pp. 294-310.
|
| I spent a year as a student at the University of Sydney
| (Australia). I roughly remember how to say in Latin
| "University of Sydney Library", because they stamped it on
| all their old library books (something like "Bibliotheca
| Universitatis Sidneiensis")-I expect old books in Harvard's
| library may be stamped in Latin too
| fsckboy wrote:
| when it comes to latin, i must decline to decline for you,
| but there's this:
|
| sigillum academiae harvardianae in nov ang
|
| https://etc.usf.edu/clipart/55900/55996/55996_harvard_seal.h.
| ..
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| First declension! Never would've guessed. Also smart to dig
| up a deal to look for Latin inscriptions :)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| _Magna Carta, approximately 1300. Manuscript. HLS MS 172, Harvard
| Law School Library_
| https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:49364859$1i
| anthk wrote:
| Magna Carta reminds me of the "Seven parts" from Alphonse X of
| Castille, nearly in the same era.
|
| Also, for _its day_ , it was kinda open-minded and progressive,
| and Alphonse X was a damn nerd as he ordered to compose a book of
| games like chess and more tabletop games like Nine Men Morris
| (Libro de los juegos/The Book of Games).
| davikr wrote:
| $450 when corrected for inflation.
| tim333 wrote:
| In 1945 they had the gold standard at $35/oz so $27.50 would
| have been 0.7857 oz of gold currently worth $2540.
| standeven wrote:
| Is this a reasonable metric though? No one was buying books
| in 1945 with gold.
| koolba wrote:
| If I were selling books in Europe in 1945, I'd much prefer
| gold to Reichsmarks.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| It's a better metric than the estimate of the dollar
| inflation. Gold standard was in use until 1971
| jonhohle wrote:
| Gold is considered to have relatively consistent value over
| time.
|
| Median home price in 1940 Boston area was $3,600 or 180oz
| gold. Today the median home price is 215oz of gold in the
| same area (or $670,000). In terms of gold, house prices are
| up 20%. In terms of dollars, 18000%.
|
| A new car still costs around 13oz of gold.
|
| Real inflation of fiat is easy to obscure for political
| reasons. That's much harder to do with the market value of
| gold.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Gold is considered to have relatively consistent value
| over time.
|
| Not really. It has fluctuated a lot. You can pick
| starting and ending points a few years apart and come up
| with very different results relative to actual inflation.
|
| > A new car still costs around 13oz of gold.
|
| Now take this idea and average it across a large number
| of different items and you arrive at inflation
| statistics, which are better than using 1 commodity or 1
| purchasable item as a benchmark.
| thatcat wrote:
| Using core, required assets actually makes more sense
| considering recurring purchases tend to change over time.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| > Now take this idea and average it across a large number
| of different items and you arrive at inflation statistics
|
| If only it was as simple: you will need to introduce
| weights between different items, and account to the
| change of those weights too. Also gold isn't just
| commodity, it's monetary commodity.
|
| If you use official inflation dollars you get 1$ 1940 ~=
| 23$ 2025. You can see how magnitude wrong it is for
| housing or cars in the example above.
|
| Here's food prices from 1940 diner: > A 25-cent platter,
| 5-cent hotdog, and 10-cent hamburger. Also doesn't really
| work with official inflation dollars either. And again
| works much better with gold prices.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Gold was a standard for a reason
| cyberax wrote:
| > In terms of gold, house prices are up 20%
|
| Except that the gold price fluctuated by 50% within the
| last 30 years: https://goldprice.org/gold-price-
| history.html
| deeg wrote:
| > A new car still costs around 13oz of gold
|
| But a new car today is vastly different from a 1940s car,
| so different that it's nonsensical to use it to compare
| purchasing power of gold.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| desilvering of coins was in the 1965 coin act.
|
| So if they paid in dimes/quarters/ half dollars /dollars,
| they were paying in silver
| hilsdev wrote:
| All cash was convertible to gold at a fixed rate, so more
| or less they were
| jltsiren wrote:
| In 1945, US GDP per capita was almost $1600. Using your
| conversion factors, that would be almost $150k today. The
| actual number is something like $85k. I don't think Americans
| are that much poorer today than they were 80 years ago.
| hilsdev wrote:
| You're starting to get into the theories of how they hide
| true inflation
| rileytg wrote:
| i'm american, what's the price in big macs?
| qingcharles wrote:
| Four myocardial infarctions.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| How is GDP per capita a useful measure in the presence of
| almost-trillionaires?
|
| Depending on which city they sleep in, Bezos or Musk make
| all local citizens multimillionaires. Per capita.
| Statistically.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| This is very true. One should look at some select
| percentiles instead, IMHO.
| dralley wrote:
| It's not an original so much as an official copy. The copies,
| dated 1300, were created 85 years after the signing of the
| original Magna Carta in 1215.
|
| Although I suppose the argument is that if you re-affirm the same
| text several times, that each one is legitimate.
|
| >First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions
| won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England
| -- or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore.
|
| >He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued
| amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry's son, Edward
| I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.
|
| But still, it would be weird to say that a copy of the
| Constitution produced during the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
| and re-affirmed by the govt was "an original" even if it
| otherwise had pedigree.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| "Original copy?"
| dvh wrote:
| "genuine replica"
| metalman wrote:
| whatever, umm, "sanctioned forgery" but exactly how is it a
| "copy", as the Magna Carta was hand written, with 4 signed
| copys still in existance today. the item under discussion
| was created 85 years after the magna carta, and presumably,
| everyone who was involved with the original, was dead so
| this thing is just old, but has no direct connection, it's
| even listed as an "amended version" of the actual original
| document, which means of course that some ancient
| controversy and disagreement, is lurking for our perusal
| and picking sides
| hughdbrown wrote:
| Came here to understand exactly this point. It made no sense to
| me that a document created in 1215 would have a copy made in
| 1300 that was referred to as an original.
| huijzer wrote:
| Yeah Harvard is doing good stuff. I also love listening to
| Stephen Kotkin. He uses the Socratic method a lot so he just goes
| a bit from here to there and lets you make up your own mind.
| Really great historian if you ask me. Very calming to listen to
| too IMO.
| queuebert wrote:
| Copies of the Magna Carta are becoming unaffordable for working-
| class families.
| varispeed wrote:
| Working-class families should work just a little bit harder and
| maybe cut down on avocados and Netflix.
| vondur wrote:
| Look, we aren't barbarians here.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The sad thing is, cutting down on the streamers does make an
| actual dent in outgo. Each platform is at least $9USD, and
| subscribing to them all at this point is easily $100/month.
| Obviously, some are higher than $9, but cutting the cord to
| save money tends to come out higher than the dreaded cable
| bill.
|
| Avacodos be damned
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Reminds me of that time I found a book at my Uni library that was
| in the rare books collection that I could only read in the
| reading room and then saw there were many copies on AMZN for 50
| cents + shipping.
| standeven wrote:
| Was the university exaggerating the value, or did you pick up
| some valuable books for cheap?
| dleary wrote:
| If a work is older than 200 years and worth reading, then
| original editions are going to be valuable.
|
| But it will also be out of copyright so the cost of getting a
| "new" copy is basically just the cost of printing.
| asciimov wrote:
| Likely a different edition, or reproduction.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This was a 1970s paperback by someone who attracted attention
| for his work on spiritual matters and sold a lot of books but
| didn't leave an organization behind so you can find his books
| at used bookstores.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Secrets-Happiness-
| Intimat...
|
| Not rare at all but some people might say it has some
| prurient interest (talks about his sexual misadjustment) so
| maybe they think it has to be limited access or maybe people
| will steal it or something. (The same library kept _Steal
| this book_ in a restricted area of the stacks but let me
| check it out.)
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| When a librarian says a book is rare, they don't mean that the
| information inside is scarce. Rather, they mean that there are
| few surviving examples of that particular printing or edition
| of manufacture.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| For instance, you can get a first edition copy of Trilby
| (which was basically the 1890's Twilight Saga) for a few
| hundred bucks or less as long as you're not picky about the
| condition.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby_(novel)
| paxys wrote:
| Next you'll wonder why people make such a big deal about the
| Mona Lisa when you can buy your own version at the Louvre gift
| shop for $25.
| sirmoveon wrote:
| Are we as a society have become that gullible? Seems more like
| someone's trying to find a somewhat credible excuse to launder
| the stolen goods.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >>Harvard Law School bought its version from a London legal
| book dealer, Sweet & Maxwell, which had in turn purchased the
| manuscript in December 1945 from Sotheby's, the auctioneers.
|
| >>In the 1945 auction catalog it was listed as a copy and with
| the wrong date (1327) and was sold for PS42 -- about a fifth of
| the average annual income in the United Kingdom at the time --
| on behalf of Forster Maynard, an Air Vice-Marshal who had
| served as a fighter pilot in World War I.
|
| >>Air Vice-Marshal Maynard inherited it from the family of
| Thomas and John Clarkson, who were leading campaigners in
| Britain against the slave trade from the 1780s onward.
|
| Pretty convoluted path to launder stolen goods.
| alephnerd wrote:
| If you ever have the chance, you absolutely should visit the
| libraries and museums on campus. It's a treat.
|
| I especially loved walking around Widener Library and marveling
| at the murals and that original Guteberg Bible
| soperj wrote:
| I tried going in, but couldn't without a student id.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Ah yea, security has gotten much tougher now. There are a
| couple open-access museums though like the Art Museum, the
| Near East Museum, the Scientific Instruments one in the
| Science Building, and a couple others.
|
| All in all, loved the museums and history, but detested
| Harvard. I would have been a better fit at a more middle
| class college like Cal, Stanford, or MIT.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Can a student take you in as a +1?
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| If you're willing to brave the American customs gulag,
| Stanford's free Cantor museum has very historically and
| artistically significant bits. No ID needed there, of all
| places.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Cantor museum has very historically and artistically
| significant bits
|
| Amen to that. Love Stanford. Cal has a ton of great stuff
| too.
|
| > the American customs gulag
|
| What does that mean? I've been to Cantor multiple times and
| nothing seemed out of the ordinary security wise.
| jb1991 wrote:
| Amazingly, the woman in one photo is not even using gloves to
| touch this ancient document.
| dmbche wrote:
| Best practices today are clean hands and no gloves as it
| lessens chance of tearing paper as you have better dexterity if
| I recall correctly
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| Not to mention that vellum isn't damaged by skin oils - it's
| already animal skin and contains its own oils.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Modern practice recommends using clean, ungloved hands for
| documents in most circumstances. Gloves reduce dexterity,
| making tears more likely.
|
| https://ask.loc.gov/preservation/faq/337286
|
| https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/handling-historic-colle...
|
| https://info.gaylord.com/resources/for-the-glove-of-preserva...
| qingcharles wrote:
| This. But anything glossy I would always switch to gloves,
| even though they are annoying, because otherwise oils get
| everywhere.
| thih9 wrote:
| This is the recommended way to handle old books.
|
| > We're often led to believe that wearing gloves is essential
| when handling precious books. In fact, it poses a serious risk
| of damaging them.
|
| https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/our-cause/history-heritage/...
| heelix wrote:
| Saw some of the examples on holiday last month when we were in
| Salisbury. It was really neat to be that close to one of the ones
| sent out. Before that time, I'd never actually read the Magna
| Carta, which really was an interesting read.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Ezra Klein would sneer at the red tape regulations imposed by a
| limited monarchy because they "know better" than us plebs how to
| wield absolute power properly. /s
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