10/4/2023 0 Comments Hebrew manuscripts forsale![]() He then bequeathed the manuscript to his sons with the condition that they never sell it. The first known sale of the Codex came in the early 11th century when businessman Khalaf ben Abraham sold it to Isaac ben Ezekiel al-Attar for an estimated 37 gold dinar, or enough money to feed a family of four for two years. While the person who commissioned the Bible is lost to history, records inscribed in its pages over the centuries allow scholars to definitively trace later owners. THE ROTHSCHILD PRAYERBOOK: $13.6 millionįor the Codex Sassoon, the May auction is the latest stop on its extraordinary thousand-year journey, which began with a wealthy patron, some 200 pieces of sheepskin and more than a year’s work for a single scribe. ![]() The Da Vinci Codex: Billl Gates purchased Leonardo’s scientific writings, known as the Codex Leicester, in 1994.įrancois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images 1. The Biblio File The most valuable books, manuscripts or printed text ever sold at auction. “It’s a book that has such resonance for so many millions of people around the world, so we felt that the price was equivalent to its power.” “We looked at the comparables and realized that there are no comparables,” says Liberman Mintz. It also contains crucial vowel and cantillation marks that other Judaica manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls lack-meaning modern-day Hebrew readers can understand it. That title is currently held by a first edition of the United States Constitution that sold for $43.2 million in 2021 to billionaire Ken Griffin.īelieved to have been written in the late 9th or early 10th century, the Codex Sassoon is particularly valuable because it’s the earliest, most complete Hebrew Bible in existence, containing each of the 24 books, including the Torah (or Pentateuch) the Nevi’im (or Prophets) and Ketuvim (or Writings). ![]() It’s not until Liberman Mintz and a colleague lift it-as gingerly as one can raise a 26-pound, six-inch thick stack of centuries-old parchment-that the true heft of the Codex apparent.Īlready boasting the highest pre-auction estimate of a book or manuscript ($30 million to $50 million – AU$74 million), the Codex Sassoon could become the most expensive book or manuscript ever sold at auction when it hits the block this spring. Hardly a glamorous setting for one of the most valuable books in the world. But for now, the thousand-year-old Hebrew Bible is stored in what looks like a supersized shoebox stuffed with paper, on a crowded table in a nondescript room at the auction house’s New York headquarters. “It’s one of the world’s greatest treasures.” Sharon Liberman Mintz, a senior Judaica specialist at Sotheby’s, says of the Codex Sassoon, which goes up for auction in May. The Codex Sassoon, a 10th century Hebrew Bible, goes up for sale at Sotheby’s in May and could become the most valuable book ever sold at auction.
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