Sotheby’s does it again with another record-breaking item they had auctioned off.  Last Tuesday night, a US financier and philanthropist had bought the Bay Psalm Book at $14M.

According to www.bbc.co.uk:

A tiny book of psalms has been sold at auction in New York for more than $14M, making it the world’s most expensive printed book.

The high value of the small book comes from its rarity and historical relevance.  It is one of only 11 copies that remain out of the 1,700 that were originally printed and the Bay Psalm is the first known book to be printed in the United States. Bay Psalm Book was published by the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Cambridge.

In 1947, a copy of the Bay Psalm Book was sold for $151,000 which made a record for that period. Still, the record for most expensive book ever remains with Leonardo da Vinci’s handwritten notebook, sold in 1994 for $30.8M.