Rare Harry Potter book sells for £64,000 at Staffordshire auction

The hardback copies of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' are two of only 500 books in the first print of JK Rowling's debut novel, dating as far back as 1997. 

One of the books sold for £36,000 at auction in Lichfield. However, the other, which sold for £64,000, reportedly had no signs of it being read, except for a small mark on page 128. 

The books were discovered by Jim Spencer, from the Rare Books Auctions team, who claims he has found 20 of the 500 books so far- but the one that sold for £64k is is one of the best conditions he has ever seen.

The eye-watering sale also had a tear-jerking story behind it, having been previously owned by Katie King, who died in 2010 at the age of 40. Inside, it bears the inscription: ‘Dear Katie, my favourite sister! With all my love, Sarah, 12 August 1997’. 

Tragically, Katie battled cancer from the age of five and until she died. Her family said she was a miracle sister because she survived so long against the odds.

Before the sale, Jim Spencer explained: “Katie knew her book was a first edition and hoped any money raised would eventually go to Sarah’s children and that wish is poised to be honoured."

Sarah, 50, who is now a volunteer and mother-of-two, said: "This book belonged to my sister, Katie King. Even as an adult, she loved children’s adventure and fantasy novels and so when I was browsing through the Bookseller one day at work in 1997, I was interested in an interview with a then unknown author, Joanne Rowling, who’d got a book deal for a children’s fantasy novel about wizards.

"My sister had almost exhausted children’s fiction in the fantasy genre after my mum had spent years teaching her to read again after she had cancer as a five-year-old in 1975. Listening to audiobooks and music helped her through recovery and chemo after surgery to remove a brain tumour."