Book Sells for R72Million

I struggle to pay more than R400 for a good book. But it seems there are people out there who don’t mind parting with the likes of seventy two bar. This is the bound beauty in question…

Birds of America by John James Audubon

A copy of “Birds of America” by John James Audubon was sold Tuesday at auction in London for more than $10 million, making it the world’s most expensive printed book. The book, one of the best preserved editions of Audubon’s 19th-century masterpiece features 435 hand-colored illustrations.

Two of Johns feathered friends

It went to an anonymous collector bidding by telephone and came from the estate of the second Baron Hesketh, a collector who died in 1955. Though the sale set the record for a printed book, Bill Gates paid $31 million in 1994 for a 72-page notebook of Leonardo da Vinci’s, known as the Leicester Codex.

Word!