Talk:List of most expensive books and manuscripts

List limitation

Does anyone wish to suggest a price at which books should be added to this list? One million US dollars or more only? I have no recommendation, but it's possible that the list could become quite lengthy if not given a proper cutoff. Spacini (talk) 20:51, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Good choice, I support the one million dollar barrier. --Narayan (talk) 18:44, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Gruuthuse manuscript

The Gruuthuse manuscript deserves a place over here as well, it has been sold for between 2,5 and 5 million euros but I'm still looking for a good English source. --Narayan (talk) 18:44, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed! Thank you for the note and I look forward to seeing what you find as I am not terribly familiar with this manuscript. Spacini (talk) 21:02, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Original Rules of basketball

Does this count towards this list? It was auctioned for about $4 million USD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.246.52.60 (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Updating the interactive graph

I added the Book of Mormon printer's manuscript today to the list. But I do not know how to update the graph. Can anyone add it to the graph?

Fenevad (talk) 19:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

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The J.K. Rowling book

Obviously wikipedia can't maintain an updated pricing list 100% of the time, however the book has dropped by millions of dollars since 2007.

It no longer belongs on this list, as it was recently sold for £368,750 at auction (roughly $473,956)

source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/13/beedle-the-bard-jk-rowling-auction

-Rob^talk 11:36, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I would agree with your logic for removing this item from the list if the copy which was being removed was the one that sold in 2007. This recent sale is not for that copy as it was one of seven copies. The copy which recently sold was a presentation copy to publisher Barry Cunningham. I'm going to revert the edit based on the sale of the original charity copy. Spacini (talk) 02:07, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Interactive graph

Can we remove the interactive graph? Whilst I appreciate that someone put a lot effort into it, it is extremely difficult to maintain, and adds little value for our readers. BabelStone (talk) 09:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

@BabelStone: it's just five entries behind the list. Is that really too much? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:51, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

OK. It'll be great if you can update it. BabelStone (talk) 16:06, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I have had a long look at the {{Graph:Most_Expensive_Books}}, and it duplicates a large proportion of the information presented in the table on this page, so it would take a lot of time and effort to update it to correctly match the latest state of the table; and every non-cosmetic change to the table requires an equivalent change to the template, which makes it very problematic to maintain. It has not been updated since 23 February 2016‎, so obviously no-one is willing to maintain the graph. Therefore, unless someone steps up to the mark I will remove the graph from this page as it is out of date and misleading. BabelStone (talk) 20:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I concur with BabelStone. Remove it. Never really made sense to have it on the page. Spacini (talk) 02:50, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Adds nothing of real value and is hugely behind the list. Remove Hochithecreator (talk) 12:37, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I have nominated the graph for deletion since it is no longer used on any page: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 October 6#Template:Graph:Most Expensive Books. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:48, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Ah, this was created as one of the first examples of how to use the graph extension. No need to keep it in the article, but you could have just... moved it to my userspace instead of deleting. :) I've archived it. Warmly, – SJ + 04:25, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Scope of this article

@Hochithecreator: added a hand-written letter by Zeng Gong that sold for more than $30 million in 2016, but I'm not sure that individual letters are in scope for this article. I think pure calligraphy is definitely out of scope as it is art, but letters are documents, and the list does include other single sheet documents such as the rules of basketball and the 13th amendment, so I think it needs discussion. Here are some other letters that also sold for more than USD 1 million:

• Typed letter from Albert Einstein that sold for USD 2,096,000 in 2002
• Handwritten letter from Albert Einstein that sold for USD 2,892,500 in 2018
• Letter from Francis Crick that sold for USD 6,059,750 in 2013

It might be an idea to move List of most expensive letters to its own article. BabelStone (talk) 13:58, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

If we get enough letters to justify its own page then, possibly. The only thing is that the letters themselves don't have there own articles so it would be an article with very few bluelinks. Hochithecreator (talk) 15:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Move $ from values to column header?

At least to me, the $ at the start of the value indicates to me that the value is in dollars, not millions of dollars. At least to me, it would be much clearer to move it to the column header, which would now say "... price (in millions of $)" or something like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sollyucko (talk • contribs) 19:55, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

The 120 Days of Sodom

There was a recent sale of the manuscript to the French state. I am not sure, but I would bet the prize was more thän 7 million. Should the page be updated? -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 22:21, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Nevermind. It was sold for four million. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 22:24, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Zhao Mengfu Letters

I'm not sure if the letters of Zhao Mengfu added by @Sevilledade: should be in this article since the sale was of two different manuscripts. I wonder if @BabelStone: has any opinion on this? Hochithecreator (talk) 19:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

It is two letters, and both letters are addressed to Guo Tianxi from Zhao Mengfu. However, it was sold as one unit/set/LOT by the auction house. Also, if that should not be included, then we will need to remove examples from this article such as Jami' al-tawarikh, which has 59 folios, the Yongle Encyclopedia, which has two volumes, and Stendhal's Diaries, which has six volumes, and so on. If it is sold by the auction house as one unit, it should be listed as such.--Sevilledade (talk) 20:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Point taken, though perhaps it could be changed to Letters from Zhao Mengfu to Guo Tianxi so as to fit with rest of the letters in the list. Though I really would like to get BabelStone's opinion before finishing the matter. What with him being an actual Sinologist and all. Hochithecreator (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Actually, on closer inspection the greater question over whether these letters should be here is if this is the correct page for them. The China Daily article lists them as Classical Chinese painting and calligraphy, which would make them an artwork rather than a document. It has already been mentioned in a previous thread that calligraphy is beyond the scope of this article. Hochithecreator (talk) 09:24, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Indeed the auction house even classifies the lot as a classical Chinese painting. Hochithecreator (talk) 09:53, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm aware of that and specifically did not include Chinese calligraphy because of that. If actual Chinese calligraphy works would be included on this list, there would be a lot more entries included here. For example Huang Tingjian's calligraphy Di Zhu Ming was sold for 64 million in dollars in 2010 [1]. The difference is that, pure calligraphy would be considered "art", whereas letters are functional and practical, and they are sent to another person for a purpose, and that is the big difference. Of course, we need to remember that Zhao Mengfu is, before anything else, a painter and calligrapher, so of course his letters would look more "artistic" and look more like calligraphy works. Also, if we are going to remove that, then might as well remove Zeng Gong's letter as well, since that is also labeled as a "calligraphy letter", link [2]. So yes, in terms of Chinese works (letters and calligraphy), this area is a bit blurred, but I would say a main difference is the functional aspect. Plus, if we are judging by pure aesthetic principles that Chinese letters like these should not to be included, then, by the same standard, many illuminated illustrated works should not be included as well.--Sevilledade (talk) 19:06, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced. I'll leave it in, for now. Since we basically have two people having an argument here we really need an arbiter to decide on the outcome. Hochithecreator (talk) 23:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Image missing

The image for the Constitution of the United States is missing. DarkNight0917 (talk) 00:54, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Inflation problem

The inflation tool only goes up to 2021, but there is an entry from 2022 here, so the display of inflation-adjusted price for that is an error message. EloquentMosquito (talk) 01:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)