A first edition Harry Potter book which a father used to teach his children English has fetched over Australian Dollar (AU$) 100,000 at an auction.
The rare copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, one of only 500 hardback first editions printed, had been valued at £30,000 before the auction. However, during the auction conducted by Jim Spencer, it climbed up the value and sold out at just over AU$108,000.
The book was sold by a father of three children, from Luxembourg, who did not want to share his name.
The novel went under the hammer at Hansons’ Staffordshire Library Auction on Tuesday. It has several defining characteristics the later editions of the book don’t, which boosts its value, according to the auctioneer.
The early Harry Potter even includes two mistakes – first is the spelling of the word philosopher and the other is the repetition of ‘1 wand’ in the list of equipment for Harry’s first year.
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The seller while narrating as to how he was able to fetch so much money said that he got to know about the rare copies of the Harry Potter book via media and when compared his novel lying on a bookshelf for more than two decades, he found that it fits the criteria.
He later listed it for sale, saying that it’s just been sitting on a shelf ever since with the rest of the Harry Potter books, with no special care.
“It’s actually been read only once with the date recorded in the back of the book.”
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