NEW YORK (AP).- An 1814 first edition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has sold for more than half a million dollars at a New York City auction.
Christie's auction house says an anonymous telephone bidder placed the winning bid of $506,500 on Friday. The pre-sale estimate was $200,000 to $300,000.
Christie's says it's the only known copy in private hands and one of only 11 first-edition copies known to exist. The others are in institutions or university libraries.
Francis Scott Key wrote a first draft of the poem in September 1814 after witnessing the British bombard Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
The poem was then set to music. Publisher Thomas Carr rushed the song to print, resulting in typos and Key's name being omitted.
It was adopted as the U.S. national anthem in 1931.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
