Harry Potter Sketches to be Auctioned Next Weekend
Monday, April 20th, 2009
Pen and pencil drawings by Cliff Wright will be on display and for sale at the Glasgow Art Fair. Cliff Wright illustrated the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban book. The pen and pencil drawings are the forerunners to the front and back cover art for the second book in the Harry Potter series. The front cover illustration shows Harry Potter and Hermione riding a hippogriff. The front cover is expected to go for £13,000. The other sketch on sale is of a snarling dog (i.e. Sirius Black in his dog form). This one is expected to go for £11,000. These two pieces are part of 10 that Wright did for the publisher Bloomsbury as rough ideas. The Glasgow Art Fair goes from April 23 through 26, 2009.
On Friday, March 6, 2009, a rare version of Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone for those unfamiliar with what the first book in the series true title is) sold for $19,120 in a rare books auction. The copy was a 1997 first edition of the book with the original publisher’s softcover wrappers. The book also had an illustrated card signed by J.K. Rowling. Only 200 copies of this version were made in the first printing of Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone. Prior to this winning bid the record for the highest price this version has gone for at auction was $10,750, which occurred in October 2008. The new record is almost double that amount. The winning bidder was from Dubai. He is a comic book collector, but his wife is a Harry Potter fan.
