Is My Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone Book Valuable? How To Tell If Your Copy Is A First Edition
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide, and first editions of her books have very quickly become collectable. By far the most valuable book in the series is the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published on 30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London.
But to have any real collectable value, it has to be a copy of the first edition, first impression (also known as the first printing). This means the very first batch of books off the press, of which there were only a few thousand.
First, what do the books look like? The first printing was bound in two different ways. The rarest is the hardback issue, with a cover of laminated boards. Only 500 copies were bound this way, and 300 of those were sent to libraries. Because library books receive so much wear and tear we are left with only 200 copies in potentially fine collectable condition, and these rarely appear on the market. The other binding was a regular paperback of which a few thousand copies were produced for sale.
Next , how do you tell whether your copy, which may look very similar to the one pictured above, is really a valuable first edition?
The publisher must be listed as Bloomsbury at the bottom of the title page. See photo below:
The latest date listed in the copyright information must be 1997.
The print line on the copyright page must read “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”, ten down to one, exactly. The lowest figure in the print line indicates the printing. (For instance, if your copy has “20 19 18 17”, it’s a less valuable seventeenth printing.)
You may have been told that you have a first printing if the copyright is in the name of “Joanne Rowling”, but that’s not true. All early printings of this title have the same copyright statement.
This is what the whole back of the title page should look like:
On page 53, in the list of school supplies that Harry receives from Hogwarts, the item “1 wand” must appear twice, once at the beginning and once at the end. This mistake was corrected in the second printing of the book (although it re-appeared in some later printings).
If your book meets all these requirements then congratulations, you have a first edition! Depending on the binding and condition, it could be worth anywhere from many hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds.
A first-edition Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone that was published by Bloomsbury on June 30, 1997, is valued at approximately between £23,600 and £43,265 since there were just 500 original copies.
Also please rest assured that if you are lucky enough to have a First Edition First Print of "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" but the publisher is "Ted Smart" or the American First Print of "Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone" then before you throw them away, these to will fetch a good price, if not quite the level that the "Bloomsbury" first print does. Still issues have sold between £2,200 to £5,000 in Hardback, so it is always recommended to check with a specialist
Though both the paperback and hardback first editions of the Philosopher’s Stone are of value, this is not the case with the other books in the series. For the other titles, it is only the first hardback edition with the dust jacket that have collectable value.
If you wish me to do a further blog on the Value of other Harry Potter Books then please let me know at HatfieldAntiques23@outlook.com
Also why not check out some of our copies of Harry Potter books, along with some of our other literary gems on the link below: