The oldest book known to exist is the Etruscan Gold Book: a golden, six-page masterpiece made of 23.82-carat gold from circa 650 BC. Among the world's most ancient books, there is also the pocket-size book of St Cuthbert Gospel from the 8th century, which The British Museum purchased for £9 million in 2012. Another remarkable old book is the Codex Sassoon, from the 9th century, which was just sold by Sotheby’s New York.
The Codex Sassoon
Dating back to 880–960 AD, the Codex Sassoon is not just a millennium-old book – it is also one of the world’s oldest surviving biblical books. Created in present-day Israel or Syria, the text and layout of the book reminisce Torah scrolls. With an impressive 792 pages on sheepskin, the Bible is nearly complete, making it one of only two near-to-complete Hebrew Bibles from that period known to exist.
Related: A New Record for a Hebrew Prayerbook
The Provenance of the Codex Sassoon
The earliest known provenance of the manuscript traces it back to the Middle East, in the hands of Khalaf ben Abraham and Isaac ben Ezekiel al-Attar, among others. During the 13th century, the book was owned by a synagogue in Makisin, in modern-day Syria, which was then destroyed, and the book kept by Salama ibn Abi al-Fakhr until its reconstruction. The project was never completed, however, and the Hebrew Bible remained in private ownership.
Listen to: Podcast Ep #35 Antique Books: Between the Lines
In the 20th century, the book started to attract interest from the public, and in 1929 the Bombay-born book collector David Solomon Sassoon bought the Bible for £350, a large sum at the time. In his ownership, Sassoon gave it its name and added his personal bookplate to the inner binding of the book. In 1978, the British Rail Pension Fund bought the book from Sassoon’s family. Just eleven years later, the manuscript was auctioned at Sotheby’s for £2,035,000 to a book dealer, who then resold it to the Lebanese-Swiss investor Jacqui Safra. Now, 34 years later, it sold at Sotheby's New York for $38,126,000, including buyer's premium. The manuscript was purchased by the American Friends of ANU association, who will donate it to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.
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The Most Expensive Books in History
There have been many impressive auction records set by books over the years. With a selling price of $38,126,000, the Codex Sassoon became the world’s second most expensive book ever to be sold. Before that, it was the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon from 1830 (the earliest copy in existence) to hold the second place, with a selling price of $35 million.
Maintaining its first spot as the most expensive book is the the first printing of the United States Constitution, which was bought at auction in 2021 by the billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. The official first printing of the six-page bounded U.S. Constitution from 1787 fetched $43,173,000, breaking the record for any book, manuscript or printed text ever sold.
The figures, however, do not take inflation into account, meaning that adjusted for inflation, The Book of Mormon, sold in 2017, would now be worth $38.7 million, placing it above the Codex Sassoon. The Codex Leicester, a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci, bought by Microsoft's founder Bill Gates in 1994 for $30.8 million, would also now be worth $56.3 million, making it the world’s most expensive book.
