Treasures in the attic
September 2, 2003 at 1:39 PM ET
grae
Wizard News (via The Herald)
If you stored your collection of children's books in the attic when moving out of your parents' house, you may want to have another look. According to Catherine Porter, a consultant in illustrated and children's books for Sotherby's auction house in London, some of those children's classics could be quite valuable
.
In a new book to be released later this month, Ms Porter has drawn up lists of the most valuable in Britain to help collectors and bargain-hunters spot the valuable rarities among the worthless volumes on offer in charity shops and car boot sales.
Top of the lists come first-editions of books now regarded as classics by writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle and James Joyce, along with children's writers Potter and Grahame.
A copy from the first print run of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - only 10, 000 were produced - is also high on the list, along with works by JRR Tolkien, AA Milne, Virginia Woolf and Graham Greene.
The very best prices are paid for those in immaculate condition and with their original dust jackets, and those with handwritten inscriptions by the author are worth more.
So how much could that deluxe first run of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone fetch? According to Ms Porter, £25,000.
However, Cooper Hay, a book consultant for Bonhams auctioneers who runs his own antiquarian book- shop in Glasgow, said the "books lying in the attic" theory is often erroneous.
Mr Hay, who searched out antiquarian books for the late Donald Dewar, the former first minister, said that for really valuable books, such as first editions from the eighteenth century, the collectors would have spent a lot of money on them in the first place, and were unlikely to store them in attics, or lose them.
"In the case of Harry Potter, the prices really started rising after it was announced a film was to be made," Mr Hay said.