£21,000 FOR A BIBLE

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3390, 19 December 1931, Page 7

£21,000 FOR A BIBLE

SOLD TO PRIVATE COLLECTOR. The sale of a copy of the “Gutenberg Bible,” c. 1455, was recently sold in London, to a private collector for over £21,000. • •-

This impression of the Bible, lacking one leaf, is printed on paper, and has" for. more than a hundred years reposed on a shelf in a Continental library. ;

Though the price paid for this, the greatest of all the book-collectors’ prizes, is not disclosed, it is understood that, the figure is in excess of the £21,200 paid for the complete Melk cjopy (on paper) at a New York sale five years ago. There are few copies printed on vellum, one of which would have an almost fabulous value nowadays, although the last to appear at auction realised only £IO,OOO. This was at the Hoe sale in 1911.

This Bible, the first book printed with movable type, is comiuorily known as the “Mazarin Bible, ’»feause the first survivor of Gutenberg’s Mainz Press was discovered .in Cardinal Mazarin’s library..

It is also known as the “42-line Bible,” owing, to its being printed in double column? of 42 lines each. * Twenty years ago Mr Seymour de Ricci, when compiling his census, was able to find, only 41 copies, of which 31 were in public or semi-public libraries. •' i'l • • '. - . ''•