A Harry Potter Book With A Typo Just Sold For $400,000, You Should Check Your Shelf
A first edition hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sold at Heritage Auctions in Texas on October 14 for £300,000 — approximately $400,000 — after a four-minute bidding war, making it one of the most valuable Harry Potter books ever sold at auction. The copy is one of only 500 case-bound first editions printed in 1997, when Rowling was an unknown author whose book had been rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury agreed to take it on, and it carries the two typos that make any first print run copy immediately identifiable: on the back cover, the word "philosopher" is misspelled as "philospher," and on page 53, the item "1 wand" appears twice in the list of school supplies Harry needs for Hogwarts. Those two errors, corrected in every subsequent printing, are central to why this copy is worth $400,000, and the book also carries Rowling's name on the copyright page as "Joanne" rather than "J.K.," another first-edition marker.
Most of the 500 first editions were sent directly to schools and libraries, where they were read, handed around, and largely worn out or discarded, but a small number ended up in private hands with people who had no idea what they were holding. A woman in England once found one at a rummage sale for £1 and later sold it at auction for £28,500. If you own a hardcover UK edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone published by Bloomsbury, check the copyright page for the year 1997 and the number line "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1," then check page 53 for the double "1 wand" entry. If both are there, you may want to call an auction house before your next library donation.
