Thrifters and used-book nerds alike can appreciate the reward of digging through piles of items to find one very special, very precious piece. That’s what happened to one Reddit user, who volunteers at St. Helena’s hospice in the U.K., after digging through a Doritos box full of donated books finding, not Doritos, but a first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring.
It was almost destined for the trash but they were able to save it. As CrawlLikeASpider-Man writes:
I work for a charity and sometimes I sort through the masses of donations that we get on a daily basis. This day a Dorito’s box full of books came in and I took it, after it fell apart and spilt the contents everywhere. The books inside were bog standard. Apart from the grail sitting at the bottom like it was nothing. Lord of the Rings hardbacks were kept the same for so long that most people treat it as a throwaway book, as in we literally throw it away, but I gotta check it. I always check, just in case and today it paid off. The charity is a First Edition First Impression Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring, 1/3000 richer. Literally the holy grail for a lot of people. And I took the box off of a volunteer literally about to throw the box away because it was full of old books. They don’t sell they would say. The charity is small and I imagine the books that are thrown away during this process across the world and I am gutted that there are not more people like me in the business who will take a moment and check out the “old” books that “won’t sell”.
As shown in the photos, the Redditor found a 1st Edition 1954 Hardcover copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. Apparently only 1500 of these UK copies were ever printed, and with the original dust jacket, can go for up to $6,500. And he found it in a Dorito box. ‘Tis truly a treasure that all of Middle Earth would covet Thorin no stop you can’t have it not everything is for you.
The Redditor has put the 1st Edition hardcover up for auction on eBay, with all proceeds to go back towards the charity he volunteers for. As of this writing, the winning bid scored the edition for £2,250.00
I have a weirdly specific fantasy about finding a first edition Hobbit in a garage sale/library sale/used book store.
Well I guess there are first editions and first editions. I found one of Neville Shute’s On the Beach in hardback for £1 in a charity shop. Maybe worth £80 but I’ll keep it for pleasure. I also found a first edition of an Archers of Ambridge book. Worth absolutely nothing. I’ll keep that too.
The book had a mind of its own. It wanted to be found.
I wonder what my first edition Silmarillion with no cover is worth? Not that I’d part with it as it was a Christmas present.
very cool find, looks in decent condition, worth a little more than a bag of Doritos![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
I picked up a paperback anthology of medieval poetry and discovered W.H. Auden’s autograph inside it, along with a clipping about a lecture he gave (presumably the one at which he autographed the book). No idea what it’s worth.
Lol incredible
A friend of mine has a first edition Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, because she was interning at the publisher’s when it was first released. I think she’s put it somewhere safe as a nest-egg.
wiredog@@.-@
Very little I’m afraid, at least in the UK. Because it was such a big thing – a new Tolkien set in the LOTR world, a huge number of copies were printed and so there’s a lot of them about. It’s the same with James Bond. a Casino Royale first edition is worth a fortune as not that many were printed, an Octopussy first (last Bond book published, loads of copies) very little.
I used to be a book dealer.
a-j @9
Pretty much what I expected. When Dad died I looked into selling off some of his books that were printed in the 1800s and in decent condition. They weren’t worth the cost of shipping. Generally a book has to be a first edition in mint condition, signed by the author, or extremely rare, to be worth anything.
@3
I can put it no plainer than to say that you were meant to find the book