First edition copy of The Hobbit found in a charity shop sells for a huge amount
A first edition copy of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit has sold for more than £10,000 after it was discovered by chance in a charity shop.
Adam Carsley was in a back room at the Cancer Research UK store in Dundee when he stumbled upon the relic among hundreds of other books.
The manager said it was ‘well looked after’ but not ‘really sellable’ in the shop due to its age.
‘I opened the first page to see it was a first edition and thought it may be worthy of sending to the eBay team,’ he said.
The book was put up for sale on eBay where it sold for a whopping £10,099.50.
It was one of 1,500 copies printed in the book’s original run in 1937, when it was published to wide critical acclaim, and contains black and white illustrations by Tolkien himself.
‘At first, I thought we’d get a maximum of £500 if we were lucky so I couldn’t believe it when I heard a few months later it had sold for over £10,000,’ Mr Carson added.
Written as a prelude to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit went on to sell millions of copies and became one of the most beloved books of the 20th century.
The story follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, which inspired the high fantasy adventure trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.
In 2015, a first edition of The Hobbit, containing an inscription in Elvish by Tolkien, sold at auction in London for £137,000, smashing the previous record of £60,000.
Mr Carson added: ‘To my knowledge this is one the most valuable items donated to one of our stores. Most definitely the highest price achieved on our eBay site for a single item.
‘Donations like these help to fund lifesaving research across the whole of the UK.’
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