The Billionaire’s Bookshelf: The Most Expensive Books Owned by the Ultra-Rich
Written by
Terence Loose
Edited by
Jana Lynch
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Books hold a special power. For a $20 investment or a visit to your library, a book can transport you to other worlds, stir up deep emotions or make you laugh till your sides hurt. Perhaps it’s no wonder that some books have inspired billionaire bookworms to pay hefty sums to own some of them.
Here are five of the most expensive books ever sold.
Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci
Purchase Price (1994): $30.8 million
Inflation-Adjusted Price (2024): $64.9 million
In 1994, Microsoft founder Bill Gates paid nearly $31 million for this 1510 book, making it the most expensive one ever sold. What’s so special about the Codex Leicester?This was Leonardo da Vinci’s science notebook, full of his drawings, theories and observations. It contains explorations on the movement of water, the luminosity of the moon and why sea creature fossils are often found on mountains.
Gates was so taken with the drawings that he used scans of the book as screensavers and wallpaper for Windows 98 Plus.
U.S. Constitution, First Edition
Purchase Price (2021): $43.2 million
Inflation-Adjusted Price (2024): $49.8 million
Ken Griffin, billionaire CEO of Citadel hedge fund, beat out a group of cryptocurrency investors to nab a first edition of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction. The crypto investors included over 17,000 people who had crowdfunded over $40 million through social media to win the bidding war.
But Griffin outbid them and shocked even the auctioneers, who had expected a $20 million sale price.
Jushi Tie, by Zeng Gong
Purchase Price (2021): $31.7 million
Inflation-Adjusted Price (2024): $41.3 million
In 2021, Chinese billionaire media mogul Wang Zhongjun bought this letter written by Zeng Gong, one of the most revered prose writers of the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279). The 11th-century letter is only 124 characters long and is written to a friend of Gong’s. It wasn’t the first time Wang dropped millions on a historic artifact, though. In 2014, he paid $61.8 million for Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life: Vase with Daisies and Poppies.
Codex Sassoon
Purchase Price (2023): $38.1 million
Inflation-Adjusted Price (2024): $39.1 million
American attorney and former ambassador to Romania from 1994 to 1997 Alfred H. Moses purchased this book, the oldest most complete Hebrew Bible, and gifted it to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel. The $38.1 million purchase price reportedly made it the most expensive manuscript and item of Judaica ever sold.
The Bible dates back to the late ninth to early tenth century.
Magna Carta
Purchase Price (2007): $21.3 million
Inflation-Adjusted Price (2024): $32.1 million
In 1215, King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta to avoid civil war. The document was the first to challenge any king’s divine rule and declare that royalty was not above the law. As such, the Magna Carta strongly influences the U.S. Constitution, making it a revered document.
Billionaire investor and co-founder of the Carlyle Group David Rubenstein paid dearly to keep it in the U.S.
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