Release: MONDAY APRIL 2, 2021
The Covid pandemic hasn’t offered a lot of silver linings. But, perhaps a few. Although it created a pronounced financial crisis, a few people have apparently been doing just fine, based on record prices set for some collectibles
Forced isolation has helped people revisit hobbies such as stamp and coin collecting. Demand for those has increased values 15 to 20 percent. With sports now returning, prices for rare and collectible baseball cards are skyrocketing. So too for other collector cards. Just this past week, a rare “Charizard” card from the Pokemon series sold for almost a third of a million dollars. Fiscal declines aside, some people clearly still have a lot of money.
It’s especially true for books. During this past year, many had time to rediscover reading. Some of the books people have been enjoying are quite rare.
First editions tend to be worth the most. A first edition of Tom Sawyer can sell for as much as $40,000. But they are far from the most valuable. That prize goes to a unique volume – Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester. Compiled around 1510, the 72-page notebook includes DaVinci’s ideas involving helicopters, fossils, the luminosity of the Moon, and other concepts....
It’s not something you can expect to find in a bookstore or even a rare bookseller. There’s only one, so it would take someone quite special to be able to afford it. A few years ago, that someone was Bill Gates of Microsoft fame. For the DaVinci work he paid an incredible $52 million.
Also, in the category of ‘insanely rare’ is a copy of The Magna Carta. Written in the 1200s, it lays plain how citizens of the world may enjoy freedom. Just over a decade ago, a man named David Rubenstein purchased one of the few surviving copies for over $23 million. He generously donated it to the National Archive so that all have access to the priceless treasure.
Rubenstein’s purchase was eclipsed by the sale of the original Book of Mormon. Though many exist today, this particular edition was the original manuscript dictated by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith. It was so special, in 2017, the Mormon church paid $35 million to own it.
Religious books may actually take the prize for being the most sought after. In 1455, Johann Gutenberg created the very first book printed with movable type. Today, the value of a surviving Gutenberg Bible is estimated to be between $35 million and $50 million. What it might sell for we may never know. Only three exist and one of those is kept guarded at the Library of Congress in Washington. I don’t think even Bill Gates could put his hands on that.
By the way, a century prior, Gutenberg could have gotten into big trouble. In the Middle Ages, it was heresy to translate the bible into a language other than Latin. The punishment was death. In the 1300s, a man named John Wycliffe translated the bible into English. He got away with it while he was alive. Four decades after his death, the Roman Catholic Church was so upset, they dug up Wycliffe’s corpse, burned it and threw the ashes into a river. Talk about a grudge.
By the 1600s, English language bibles were legal. A printer named Robert Barker was excited to offer one in 1631, but he messed up. When he got to the 10 Commandments in the book of Exodus he accidentally printed, “Thou shalt commit adultery” as the seventh commandment. Oops. Now known as “The Sinner’s Bible,” or “Wicked Bible,” of the 1,000 copies distributed only nine are known to now exist. In 2015, one of those sold for a comparatively paltry $40,000.
In America’s Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640, an English translation of the biblical psalms was published. Known as the Bay Psalm Book, the 47-page tome was technically the first book printed in what, 136 years later, would become the United States. One of those sold at auction in 2013 for $14 million.
With 25 million copies sold annually, the Bible is arguably the best-selling book of all time. Curiously, it also earns the rank of the most frequently stolen book be it from booksellers or hotels. I’ll assume that’s done before the culprits reach the part containing the 10 Commandments.
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