A rare copy of Harry Potter fetches over £10,000 at an auction

A rare hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has been sold for £10,500 at an auction after being purchased for only 30p.

The winning bid, which was well above its estimated value of £3,000 to £5,000, came online from Los Angeles.

Published by Bloomsbury in 1997 with a laminated board cover, the book is one of only 500 first impressions of the first edition and, of those, one of only 300 sent to libraries.

It also has an o missing from the word philosopher on its back cover.

The novel was initially snapped up at a bargain price of 30p by an anonymous man from Staffordshire after being withdrawn from Wolverhampton Library.

The buyer died at the beginning of the year, and the auctioneer behind the sale, Richard Winterton, had to rummage through hundreds of boxes of his belongings to find it.

It still carries its library identification sticker, a spine sticker with the letter J, and a withdrawal stamp. Sky News