‘50p’ Potter 1st edition up for auction at £50k
Book was due to be flogged at car boot sale
A HARRY Potter first edition which was about to be sold for 50p at a car boot sale is expected to fetch £50,000 at auction.
The rare book – one of just 500 hardback copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – was found gathering dust on a bookshelf.
Charlotte Rumsey, 28, was helping her mum Karen, 59, do a clearout of old books at her home in Blackpool when she came across the JK Rowling classic. It had been given to them by a family friend in 1999 for
Charlotte and her brothers Callum, now 27, and Cameron, now 25, to read.
The book was about to be taken to a car boot sale when Charlotte spotted another copy, valued at £13,000, feature on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.
Charlotte called her mum who checked the book’s production codes and was stunned to discover it was one of the first editions printed by publishers Bloomsbury in 1997.
The book is going under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers on December 11 and is expected to fetch up to £50,000.
Charlotte, a lawyer from Preston, said: “Things like this don’t happen to normal families like us. Our friends are delighted for us. Mum moved to Blackpool in 2003 and can’t believe she has had such a valuable book sitting on her bookshelf all that time.”
Another rare first edition of the book which was unearthed in Luxembourg fetched £60,000 at auction in October.
Hansons’ book expert Jim Spencer said: “I’m delighted for the family. Charlotte said she was hopping about and the hairs stood up on her arms when she received my call confirming it was a first issue.”