A first edition of “Harry Potter" sold for $471,000 or Rs 3,56,62,942.50 in the United States on Thursday in what the auctioneers said was a world record price for a 20th century work of fiction. The hardback 1997 British edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone," with a color illustration on the cover, was described by Heritage Auctions as “magical, incredibly bright and so very near pristine." The book was published in the United States as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone." The Dallas-based auction house said only 500 copies with the specific binding were printed. The final price was more than six times the pre-sale estimate of $70,000.
Previous auction prices for Harry Potter first editions have ranged from about $110,000 to $138,000.
“Not only is it the most expensive Harry Potter book ever sold, it’s the most expensive commercially published 20th-century work of fiction ever sold," Heritage Auctions Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena said in a statement.
The book was sold by an American collector and the name of the buyer was not released.
British author J.K. Rowling went on to write six more books about the adventures of the orphaned boy wizard that have sold some 500 million copies worldwide in 80 languages, according to US publisher Scholastic. The books were turned into eight films which made $7.8 billion at the global box office.
Earlier in August, a first edition of the same book sold for a whopping £80,000 or a little over Rs 82 lakh, four times its estimated price at an auction in North Yorkshire, UK. These rare books are among the 500 that were signed by author JK Rowling and only 200 are currently thought to be around and the rest were all sent to libraries or have been damaged in the years and cannot be repaired.
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