George Washington's personal copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights sold for $9.8million at auction on Friday.
The sale set a record for an American book or historic document.
Several bidders at Christie's New York salesroom and others on the telephone competed for the first U.S. president's signed, gold-embossed volume dating to 1789.
Auctioneers estimated that the book had a pre-sale value of just $3million.
The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, which maintains the historic Mount Vernon estate in Virginia that was Washington's home and is now open to the public, was the successful bidder.
The bound volume was Washington's personal copy of the Acts of Congress.
They include the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Christie's described the book as being in near-pristine condition after 223 years.
It was specially printed for Washington in 1789, his first year in office as president.
The margins include Washington's handwritten brackets and notations highlighting key passages concerning the president's responsibilities.
The Acts of Congress volume was sold from Washington's library at Mt. Vernon in 1876 and eventually bought at auction by collector Richard Dietrich in the 1960s. It was being sold by the family's estate.
Similar volumes were created for Thomas Jefferson Attorney General John Jay and are in Indiana's Lilly Library and a private collection, respectively.
Rare books and manuscripts have achieved impressive prices in recent years.
An autographed manuscript of Lincoln's 1864 election victory speech sold for $3.4million in February 2009, which set a record for an American manuscript at the time.
A 1787 letter written from Washington to his nephew on the subject of the ratification of the Constitution fetched $3.2million in December 2009.