Magna Carta's worth is relative these days. Last night, Sotheby's sold Ross Perot's copy of the 13th century English charter that gave birth to habeas corpus and set the foundation for basic human rights. The buyer was Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein who paid $21 million for it, less than the record price paid for Jeff Koons's Hanging Heart last month and about half the sum required to obtain an apartment at 15 Central Park West. Michael Moore may have a seizure and finally move to Canada.

Still, the single sheet of parchment dating from 1297 scored quite a mark-up over the $1.5 million Perot paid for it in 1983 when he acquired the 2,500-word medieval Latin manuscript from the Brudenell family of Deene Park. Twenty-some years later Perot's family-run foundation decided to sell the sole copy in private hands (a total of 17 originals are known to survive before the year 1300) and the only Magna Carta outside of Britain aside from an example in Australia. The manuscript, which carries the seal of King Edward I, was estimated to make $20/30 million (with proceeds going to education, medicine, and assisting wounded soldiers and their families), a fraction of the some $60 million Perot reportedly paid in his bid to become president in 1992.

Shortly after 7 p.m., Sotheby's vice-chairman David Redden took to the podium before 150 seated guests, a single phone bank, and a salesroom thick with professional camera crews alongside burly men with digital cameras and Revolutionary War types sporting curled mustaches. "So Magna Carta . . . " Redden announced with understated relish, "What should we say? $12 million to start it . . ." Bidding was nonexistent in the room aside from a lone suitor, a fair-skinned female seated in the phone bank, bidding on behalf of Rubenstein. "On the telephone, on my left. Fair warning at 19 million dollars," Redden paused before bringing down his hammer. "$19 million to the telephone."

Magna Carta's debut at auction lasted less than five minutes. The crowd applauded the result, then milled about waiting for word about the identity of the new owner who would join the ranks of Bill Gates, the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester for $30.8 million at Christie's in 1994, and television and movie producer Norman Lear who paid $8.14 million for a copy of the Declaration of Independence seven years ago (some may recall spotting it at P. Diddy's 2004 White Party).

Rubenstein, who flew in last night to attend the auction, made a personal appearance after the sale. Holding court before a purple-clothed case displaying the 710-year-old document, he announced that he would return the manuscript to the National Archives where it had been on exhibit for the last 20 years on loan from Perot. Sotheby's heralded Rubenstein as having saved Magna Carta for America.

Redden described the sale as a high point in his 33-year career at Sotheby's and recalled that in the 1970s he and his fellow Sotheby's associates had created a board game. "We debated whether the star lot would be the Mona Lisa or the Magna Carta," said Redden after the auction. "We decided on the Magna Carta." Turns out that in today's market Magna Carta is more Marvin Gardens than Park Place.

--Kelly Devine Thomas