Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Ross Perot's foundation will sell its copy of the Magna Carta for as much as $30 million in New York in mid-December, Sotheby's said.

The document, which laid the foundations for English political and civil liberties in 1215, was on loan to the National Archives in Washington, said Sotheby's spokesman Matthew Weigman, in a telephone interview. The 2,500-word document is the only one in the U.S. and was bought by Perot in 1984 for $1.5 million, the New York Times reported earlier.

Charities are benefiting as prices rise for collectibles ranging from historical documents to postage stamps that are owned by philanthropists. Pimco fund manager Bill Gross raised $9.1 million in June from early British stamps for Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Perot's foundation will use the funds for medical research, public education and other programs, the Times said, citing an employee of the foundation.

Four copies of the original Magna Carta authorized by King John in 1215 survive, according to the British Library, which holds two of the documents. The others are in the cathedral archives at Lincoln and Salisbury. In addition, there were reissues of the Magna Carta with changes in later years. Perot's copy dates from 1297, Sotheby's said.

Above the King

Fewer than 20 copies exist of the 1297 Magna Carta, which was issued by King Edward I, according to Sotheby's. In a statement today, the auction house cited Winston Churchill's 1956 comment on the document: ``Here is a law which is above the king and which even he must not break.''

Magna Carta is Latin for ``great charter.'' Written because of disagreements between King John and the English barons over the king's rights, it enshrined the principle that no man is above the law and represented a first step to democratic freedom, followed by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and other charters, Sotheby's said.

U.S. property rights can be traced to King John's concessions to the English barons in 1215, according to Bernard H. Siegan, author of the 2001 book, ``Property Rights: From Magna Carta to the Fourteenth Amendment.''

Perot founded Electronic Data Systems, or EDS, in 1962, and sold it to General Motors Corp. for $2.5 billion in 1984. He founded Perot Systems Corp. in 1988 and built it into a Fortune 1000 company.

Beneficiaries of Perot's Texas-based foundation include the Children's Medical Center of Dallas, the Boy Scouts of America, and the University of Texas Southwestern, according to Idilogic, which tracks charities' activities.

The medieval vellum manuscript was shown to the press at Sotheby's in New York today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 25, 2007 10:42 EDT