According to Independent, the first edition of J.K. Rowling’s critically acclaimed book recently fetched a whopping £33,000 (RM176,452.09) at an online auction recently.
First edition copies
The hardback book titled ‘Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone’ was found in a skip in 2008 by a teacher at a school in Buckinghamshire, which she later kept in her loft.
The copy was sold with four other books from the series – two paperback first edition copies of ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ and first editions of 'The Chamber of Secrets' and 'The Prisoner of Azkaban', which had also been thrown away.
There are only 500 editions of the first series of the book, which was first published in 1997 and they are considered as the rarest 'Harry Potter' books in existence.
Prior to the auction, experts estimated that the book would fetch around £8,000-£12,000 (RM42,776.91 – RM64,165.37) due to some damage to its binding.
The anonymous seller told the British daily: “To say I’m pleased is an understatement. Due to its condition, we thought £20,000 (RM106,942.28)would be a good result. We watched the auction and the price just kept going up and up.”
In Malaysia, this is what we call ‘durian runtuh’.
Imagine if the owner kept it for a few more years, the price would’ve probably doubled.
So, bookworms and Potterheads, time to do some spring cleaning or revisit your book collection because you’ll never know if you’re sitting on RM200,000!