I raised £10,000 for an old Harry Potter book – it’s one of 200 printed in Britain
AN ULTRA-rare first edition Harry Potter novel that was bought for 13p has sold at auction for more than £10,000.
The uncorrected proof copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was purchased at a second-hand store in 1997 together with two other books for a total of 40 cents.
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The title page incorrectly listed the author’s name as “JA Rowling” instead of JK Rowling, and then on the other side as “Joanne Rowling”.
The uncorrected proof copy was one of only 200 copies printed by Bloomsbury 26 years ago.
It has now sold at auction for £14,432.
The seller, 52, originally from London but now living in Italy, said she bought the book at the age of 26 and lived in Crystal Palace.
She said: ‘I didn’t have much money, but I always enjoyed treating myself to a round of second-hand bookshops on Saturday mornings.
“I went to one of my usual haunts, one of the second-hand bookshops just off the main drag in Crystal Palace, in search of some Agatha Christies.
“Piles of books were all mixed up in baskets on the floor with a maximum price of 40 cents.
“The Harry Potter book was in the piles – maybe even by accident – just like the rest Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh etc as far as I remember.
“I bought it as a throw-in with a few other titles – 40 cents for all three. I don’t think I looked at it properly to tell the truth.”
After attracting worldwide attention, it was sold to a private British buyer at Hansons salesroom in Staffordshire on Monday.
The book sold for a hammer price of £11,000, and the premium total was £14,432.
Jim Spencer, the auction house’s Harry Potter book expert, said: “This book deserved to do so well. This proof copy started the Harry Potter phenomenon. This is the very first appearance of the first Potter novel in print.”
Since 1997, the book has gone to China, Taiwan, Britain and now Italy, where it has been packed and unpacked without being read.
“It ended up behind a shelf in my bedroom until,” the owner continued, “for no good reason other than the fact that my children were becoming Harry Potter fans, I went looking for it.
‘Even the children haven’t read it – there are four of them aged from 12 to 25. Unfortunately – or fortunately in this case – they always preferred the movies.
“I was bored one evening scrolling through the Internet when a story popped up about the incredible prices being achieved for Potter books, so I decided to contact Jim Spencer to see if my book would be valuable can be.
“For me to find it when I did was just an enormous amount of well-timed luck for which I will always be grateful and more than a little surprised.”
She contacted Spencer to see if her book was valuable, admitting that “finding it when I did was just a huge piece of well-timed luck for which I will always be grateful and more than a little surprised.”
The remarkable discovery comes just weeks after another ultra-rare Harry Potter book was auctioned for £10,000 after it was mysteriously dumped at a charity.
A generous donor gave away the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to the Isle of Wight store, where it was expected to fetch a staggering amount due to the many printing errors.
How do you recognize a rare Harry Potter book?
As JK Rowling’s popularity has skyrocketed, so has the value of the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
If you think you may have one, first check to see if Bloomsbury is listed as the publisher on the title page at the bottom.
The copy should be a first edition, which will be noted on the first few pages.
The last date stated in the copyright information must be 1997.
It must be attributed to “Joanne Rowling” and not “JK Rowling” and must include a print line reading “1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1” on the copyright page.
There is an error on page 53 where “1 wand” appears twice in the list of school supplies Harry receives from Hogwarts, which was corrected in later editions.
For the other titles in the Harry Potter series, it is only the first hardcover editions with the dust jacket that have any collector value.
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