Harry Potter Book Sells for $19K – Too Much?
I love me some Hogwarts. But I don’t know that I could ever love a children’s book this much.
A rare copy of the first book in the Harry Potter series – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone here in the states, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in author J.K. Rowling’s native England, has sold for $19,120.
Autographed by Rowling, the first edition soft cover book was expected to fetch $12,000 at the auction in Texas, and the sale obviously exceeded the auction house’s expectations. It’s not actually the biggest blowout for Potter paraphernalia – an eight-hundred word prequel hand-written by Rowling sold for almost $50,000 last June to help an English writer’s group and a charity for dyslexics.
But I confess I just don’t get it – and not just in light of the current state of the economy. It’s a children’s book, and what crazy loon is going to let their kid flip through the pages of a $19,000 book? I’m one of those adults who went hogwild for Harry, but I still think books are to be read . . . not stared at on a shelf somewhere. When it comes to children’s books in particular, I’m all the more inclined to say get them out there, get those kids reading!
What do you think? If you had the money, would you blow it on something like this?
Image: Amazon
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I certainly don’t think I could ever spend that much on a book – again, unless it went to charity. I have spent more money than usual on a book, once – a first edition of my very favorite, that’s out of print. But even then I felt a bit badly abou tit.
Only if the proceeds went to charity- for then, acquiring the object would be secondary to the donation. And I’m a Harry Potter fan, too. And I’d read it to my wee rascal, but then again, I’m pregnant with my first, so I’ll be doing that for a few years at any rate.