Update: Today the Bay Psalm Book indeed became the world's most expensive, selling for more than $14 million dollars at auction, reports The New York Times.
The buyer, philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, "edged out a $12 million dollar pre-set bid" by Steve Green of Hobby Lobby's Green family, reports Religion News Service. The Green family is building a Bible museum near the National Mall.
—–
$130,056 may seem like an outrageous price tag for three Bibles. But that is exactly what the Lunar Bible Collection sold for at a New Hampshire auction last week.
The Lawrence McGlynn Lunar Flown Bible Collection and Archive includes the only complete set of microfilm lunar Bibles that flew on the Apollo 12, 13, and 14 missions.
"Due to weight restrictions on personal items that could be carried by the Apollo astronauts in their assigned personal preference kits, it was necessary to find a Bible small enough and light enough to be taken," notes a press release from RR Auction.
However, the sale figure for these Bibles is nothing compared to what America's oldest book—the Bay Psalm Book —is projected to sell for today: $15 million to $30 million, according to The New York Times (NYT).
If the auction goes as expected, that will make the book the most expensive ever sold at auction, outselling even Shakespeare's First Folio ($8.14 million in today's dollars).
For a book that experts call "rather shoddily done," this may seem expensive. But it is the first printed book from the colonies—dating back to the 1640s from a Massachusetts Puritan colony—and only 11 other copies exist.
Michael Inman, curator of rare books at the New York Public Library, told the NYT:
"These 11 copies symbolize the introduction of printing into the British colonies, which was reflective of the importance placed on reading and education by the Puritans and the concept of freely available information, freedom of expression, freedom of the press. All that fed into the revolutionary impulse that gave rise to the United States."
Religion News Service reports how Boston's Old South Church parted with one of their two copies, and how the Green family may be one of the bidders. The NYT also discuses Benjamin Franklin's role as safe-keeper of rare books, including The Whole Booke of Psalmes.
CT previously reported what you need to know about the Bay Psalm Book's history and significance.
