Harry Potter book sells for £13,500

The book was originally bought for just under £11

A rare edition of a Harry Potter book has sold for £13,500 at a Wiltshire auction.

The book, a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is one of only 300 printed.

Hawthorns, a Bristol book dealer, won the bidding at a lively session at Dominic Winter Book Auctions on Thursday.

Original owner Monica Timms from Swindon bought the book five years ago for £10.99 and had only recently discovered its value.

Total sale value was more than £15,500

Philip Best, cataloguer at the auction house, said the book was very rare indeed.

"Only 300 were printed by Bloomsbury and most went to public libraries.

"These will have library marks in them, but this book is a pristine, out of the box copy."

Dominic Winters sold a similar copy several years ago for £4,000, but they think Thursday's sale may be a record.

'Very rare'

With the fees of the auction house on top of the £13,500 hammer price, the total value of the sale was over £15,500.

Mrs Timms said she first realised the book's value when she saw people talking about it on television.

She said: "They were discussing the fact that the books were very rare and they showed a copy of one.

"I thought 'I've got one of those upstairs' and when I went and looked, I thought 'Good heavens, this fits the criteria'."

Mr Best said: "To give you an idea of the rarity, the most recent Harry Potter book was printed one million times in its first edition."