Old Harry Potter Books Worth Thousands!

Thinking of selling off your old copies of Harry Potter for cheap? Stop! They could be worth some real hard cold cash!

Despite being published less than 20 years ago, it turns out certain editions of the famous series could be worth upwards of $77,000 each.

Author Philip W Errington has researched the value of the Harry Potter books, gleaning his information while working at auction house, Sotheby’s. He has shared his findings in his new book, J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography 1997-2013.

Essentially, the older the copy, the more money you are likely to get for it. A hardback edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published by Bloomsbury, with a cover showing Harry standing by a train for instance is worth AU$76,000 according to AbeBooks. If you are lucky enough for the edition to be credited to Joanne Rowling instead of J.K. Rowling you could expect to receive more.

A softback of the first book and a hardback of the second, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, could fetch up to AU$12,500.

J.K. Rowling’s third Potter book about Harry’s adventures with the Prisoner of Azkaban, published by Bloomsbury, is also worth hanging on to. It is likely to go for around AU$900.

Later editions of the series were published in much larger print runs and therefore are not as rare or valuable, the exceptions being if you have a signed copy or special edition, which maybe of some increased value.

Image source: Getty Images

18 Comments

- - mom153507 said
  - 30 Apr 2016
    11:56 pm
I will be checking Mums bookshelf to see if she still has my old copies next time I am over there now!
I doubt I would have the ones in this article but regardless I have many happy memories with the ones I did own.
I loved reading the Harry Potter books, more so than I enjoyed the movies.
Very talented author with a vivid imagination!

- - mom160421 said
  - 01 Apr 2016
    12:07 pm
Unfortunately I don’t have any of these books, but I’ll bet there are a lot of people looking through second hand book stores for them.

- - mom103920 said
  - 03 Mar 2016
    1:09 pm
We have a modern boxed set, not worth the dollars they are talking, but worth even more. They have captured my childrens imagination, improved their literacy and lust for reading. They have been dragged about in the car, on holidays, and left next to their beds at night. Watching the movie is one thing. Watching my children absorbed by black marks on paper, is even better.

- - mom94125 said
  - 02 Mar 2016
    12:28 pm
lol i don’t have these books but i bet someone out there, is happy reading this article!

- - june11 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    11:28 pm
What a shame none of our chidren showed an interest in Harry Potter. In fact one of them wouldn’t even watch the movies

- - crystalangela said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    10:14 pm
I am going to have to check all our copies now.

- - mom90758 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    2:57 pm
Yes, I read. But I checked my daughter’s copies, and they are not between the valuable ones. What a pity! 😉

- - Mummytoabeautifulprincess said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    12:50 pm
Oh wow! Wish I had of kept my books now 🙁 haha

- - BellaB said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    12:37 pm
Oooer. It’s actually surprising what some books are worth.

- - mom165081 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    12:02 pm
Sounds interesting for original Potter Fans.

- - mom101628 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    11:58 am
Must pass this information on to my grandson.

- - mom81879 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    10:30 am
My son has all the Harry Potter books in hard cover. I wonder if he’s lucky enough to have one of the ‘special’ ones?! That would be nice

- - mom74640 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    10:15 am
Lke ew

- - curlytops said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    10:12 am
And my partner was about to throw ours out at the weekend – fortunately I stopped him!!

- - VernaB said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    9:42 am
Time to get out the books and see!

- - serotonin said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    9:19 am
Wow, I wish I owned a rare copy!

- - welshmummy said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    8:19 am
Saw this the other day and checked mine but no first edition but after I got them out I decided to started to read them all over again.

- - mum4107 said
  - 01 Mar 2016
    8:15 am
I read that in the news. Wish I had some copies lol