Digital advancements like the net , einsteinium - book readers , and even your headphone may have put a crimp in the sale of traditional book , but they have n’t been able to slow down the rare rule book market . In fact , a 400 - page book of psalms that dates back to 1640is about to be auctioned off , and is expected to betray for over $ 30 million . Here are some other old , rarefied page Turner that deal for big bucks .
1. James Audubon’sBirds of America
One of the bestselling rarefied rule book is afirst edition ofBirds of Americaby acclaimed creative person and ornithologist James Audubon . The book , which dated back to 1827 and had 435 hired man - line illustration , was sold at auction to an anon. buyer for more than $ 10 million . The book itself was more than 3 feet in length because Audubon wanted his snort to appear life - size on the page . He also depict the printing plates for his birds in contraband and white and a number of artists had to hand paint them with watercolors , an expensive cognitive operation that drove up the price of his book even in his prison term .
2. A “First Folio” of William Shakespeare’s Works
Afirst version of a book by one of the gravid author of all time(if you do n’t ask high schooling English bookman who are required to read the play so as to graduate ) get a pretty centime in 2006—$2.8 million , to be precise — at a Sotheby ’s auction sale in London . The book is actually study one of the least rarified since approximately a third of the 750 original copy are still in existence today .
3. Edgar Allan Poe’sTamerlane and Other Poems
America ’s openhanded rare Quran sale to date goes to a copy of Poe ’s very first book . A first edition ofTamerlane and Other Poems , a book that Poe claimed he publish just before he turned 14 , sold at a Christie ’s auction in 2009 for $ 662,500 . Only 50 copies were ever printed , and scholars trust that only 12 are presently in existence . Another copy of the playscript also held the previous U.S. rare volume sale platter : It went for $ 225,000 almost 20 class before the 2006 auction .
4. Nicolaus Copernicus’sDe Revolutionibus Orbium Colestium
A first print of Copernicus ’s first book , in which he theorized that the Earth revolved around the Dominicus , took home a Brobdingnagian clod of change in 2009 . A purchaser from Christie ’s auction family paid more than $ 2.2 million for the well - preserved book ( title translate toOn the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres ) . It was the highest price for a rare book sold at an auction sale where the first phone book of account , printed two year after Alexander Graham Bell invented the equipment , went for $ 170,000 .
5. Leonardo da Vinci’sCodex Leicester
The note and drawing of one of mankind ’s greatest man is also in the hand of the one of its richest . Microsoft founder and enterpriser Bill Gates spent more than $ 30.8 million foran original copy of da Vinci ’s famous manuscriptthat the artist and inventor first penned in 1508 . Then , rather than just view it collect dust in his archive , Gates had digital copies made of the holograph and put them online as part of a virtual exhibit with theBritish Library .
6. The Guo Family Library Collection
Individually , the books in this accumulation may not have trade for big horse , but as a collection , they made for an impressive sales event . Guo Yunlou sold his sept ’s collection of 1292 Book , some of which date back to the 1820s during the sovereignty of China ’s Qing dynasty , for a staggering 216 million yuan ( $ 34.2 million ) at a Beijing auction sign last year . It choose six generation of his mob to amass and care for the collection , which included an 80 - loudness encyclopedia of peak .
7. Action Comics No. 1
It may not be as enlightening as the first transcript of theMagna Cartaor as intellectually stimulating as a first edition of Thornton Wilder’sThe Bridge of San Luis Rey , but that did n’t block up one aggregator from writing a vast check for thefirstSupermancomic rule book , published in 1938 : Itsold at an auction in 2011 for a whopping $ 2.16 million , the high monetary value for a comic Quran of any kind . The comic once belonged toactor Nicolas Cage , who report it stolen from his Hollywood rest home in 2000 . It coat again in April 2011 when someone bought an abandoned Southern California storage locker and regain the drop comic among its contentedness .
8.Golf: Luxury Edition
This book was also a recent print , but the caller that published it feel that its rarity and " sumptuosity " merited a more expensive asking damage . Wonderland Publications put together a carefully handcrafted book about golf game in 2011and extend an exceedingly expensive " lavishness variation " that readers could pick up for the modest , low terms of $ 48,000 . The vast price tag was n’t just paying for what went into the book but also what went on it . All 140 page were hand torn and bound together in a cover made from 400 - year - old Russian hide leather . Only 10 were made .
Honorable Mention: Tomas Alexander Hartmann’sThe Task
This 13 - page book is n’t very old , but it is very rare and very expensive . German creative person and writer Tomas Alexander Hartmann only commissioned one copy of his Koran , and he put it on the marketplace in 2008 for an request price of 153 million Euros ( $ 199,940,400).A press release announce the book ’s releaseand first public coming into court arrogate that Hartmann put such a steep monetary value on it because he took more than 30 years to number up with the words for his 13 - varlet volume , and he believed the Mary Leontyne Price was merited because he " sees himself as the greatest philosopher of all time . " In 2009 , the creative person put the book back on display for the concluding metre , reportedly because he " commonplace of the many questions he finds himself confront with , " according to apress press release . There is no meter reading that he has find a emptor — so far .
