Weeded First Edition Harry Potter Fetches Almost $8,000
Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 3/26/2008 11:06:00 AM
Almost everyone knows by now that Harry Potter first editions are worth their weight in gold—or at least British sterling. A long-ago weeded library book still bearing its barcode recently fetched a cool ₤4,000 (nearly $8,000) at auction in England.
Christie’s, the London-based auction house, never checked the barcode on the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to confirm that it hadn't been stolen. But a Bloomberg News reporter did.
And the Northamptonshire Libraries & Information Service, the source of the barcode, confirmed that the book had indeed been "disposed of" back in 1999. "Someone got lucky, the library's service manager, Grace Kempster, told Bloomberg "As long as the barcode number confirms they've been withdrawn, that's fine."
Meanwhile, one reason for the Philosopher's Stone's high selling price was author J.K. Rowling autograph inserted into the book's pages. Another was the book's limited print run (500 copies) by Bloomsbury Publishing. The publisher didn't put much stock in the book or series succeeding.
That was a bad call, judging from the ₤36,560 ($73,000) total take for the 20 lots of Harry Potter books that were auctioned off on March 19.
Meanwhile, a Christie's official told Bloomberg that, in future, his department would check books' barcode numbers with their issuing libraries.
