Could you be in it without knowing it?
That dusty copy of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone on your bookshelf could be worth a fortune
IHAVE never read any of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy novels. I was raised on JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth (and while I think of it, I urge you to see the movie about the author’s young life – I came away from it with my emotions shredded).
Going forward, however, I will be looking out for a first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, although I may already have missed the boat.
Only 500 copies were published on June 26, 1997, and 20 years ago, a copy was purchased in a Staffordshire table top sale for £1. It sold last month for a magical £28,500. Add auctioneer Hansons’ fee to the buyer, plus VAT on the fee, and the total price was £34,200.
That’s small change to some wealthy fans and collectors, though. In November 2017, a presentation copy of the same book sold for a staggering £106,250 with fees at Bonhams in Knightsbridge.
Serving to send the price skywards was an inscription by the author to a friend and her family. It read: “For Meera, Donnie, Nastassia and Kai, with lots of love from Jo (also known as JK Rowling).”
The personal inscription was dated one month and a day after the book was published, confirming it was one of the first copies supplied to Rowling by the publisher.
The hardback originally cost £10.99. It had the same now famous misspellings and errors as the other 500: the name of the novel is spelt “Philsopher’s” on the back cover; on Page 53, a list of equipment required by Hogwarts’ pupils mentions “1 wand” twice; Rowling’s name also appears as Joanne Rowling and the publisher is noted as just “Bloomsbury”, omitting Publishing.
The first book was the only one in the popular seven-part series to call JK Rowling by her first name.
Jim Spencer, head of books and works on paper at Hansons, described the first edition as the “holy grail of Harry Potter books”, but he added a note of caution. “I receive calls every week from people saying they have a first edition Harry Potter. In fact, when
news of this discovery broke, I was receiving 50 emails a day. But most copies can invariably be ruled out in seconds,” he said.
By way of comparison, a first edition of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, published by George Allen and Unwin in 1937 is worth around £15,000.
So how do you spot a first edition? Identifying a collector of the things is easy: watch the customers in an antique bookshop. They are the ones who pull down a book from a shelf and turn first to the copyright page – usually the one facing the title or dedication page – because that’s where all the necessary clues are situated. Sometimes the clues are obvious, but not always.
In the straightforward cases, the page says First Edition, or First Printing, or First Impression and this is usually reliable. Some even give a date of the first printing on the title page, which can be checked against the date on the copyright page.
The exception is those copies printed by book clubs which are worthless budget reprints even though they may say First Printed.
In contrast, some publishers make no distinction at all, leaving the collector to find out for themselves. However, this is relatively simple since there are many ways to check an author’s bibliography, either at your local library or on the internet.
The most common, and potentially most confusing, system is found in modern books where publishers use “number lines”, a code for identifying the edition number.
If the copyright page lists a string of numbers, for example, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9, you have a first edition, since 1 represents the first. A second edition would start 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and a third would start at 3 and so on. Some publishers show the numbers in reverse, while 1 3 5 7 9 8 4 2 or letters such as abcdefghi each denotes a first edition.
If you have a first edition Philosopher’s Stone, the numbers should read “1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”.
Random House is a rare exception. If the book is a first edition they state the fact, but for some reason start the number string at 23456789. Other publishers use the code to indicate a first by their own publishing company, and not a true first. As before, if in doubt, check the author’s bibliography or with the dealer or auctioneer.
Not surprisingly, there are countless books available which help identify first editions and list current market values but remember, the price guides are almost always behind the times and this can work both ways. Prices can rocket in the time it takes to publish the guide and by the same token, they could have dropped like a stone.
Are these modern first editions good investments? The answer is probably yes, though buyers should consider them as long term and be wary of being tempted by the vagaries of fashion to spend more.
Popularity as a result of books being turned into a TV series or film can also have a dramatic effect.
Prices for first editions of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, published in 1954-55 have soared recently to £25,000 or more and shows no sign of slowing down.
Typically, it is an author’s earliest works that tend to be the most valuable, when he or she was less well-known. James Bond novels illustrate the phenomena. A first edition of Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first foray into the world of Smersh and Spectre, written in 1953, is now worth £15,000-£20,000. First editions of his later books, published in the 1960s, are still relatively common and sell for £50 or less.
However, these prices rely on the books being in a condition as near as possible to the day they were first printed. Any damage, however slight, can decimate the values and dustwrapper, if issued, must be present and remain in mint condition.
A first edition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the
Baskervilles normally sells for around £1,800-£2,000. A copy sold at auction for £72,000 purely because it had its original dustwrapper.
The best knowledge is that gained by experience. Spend time scanning internet book sales and make a friend of your local antique bookshop proprietor – like the books they sell, they’ll be a friend for life.