A first edition Book of Mormon found recently in an upstate New York estate sold at auction yesterday to an undisclosed East Coast buyer for $105,600 (including commission). The NYTimes reports that the bidding was largely remote: "Six bidders were on the phone, and another five were absentee bidders who had put in a maximum bid beforehand. Both groups were primarily from California and Utah, where the largest concentrations of Mormons live. In six minutes, the bidding ended."
The auction record for a first edition Book of Mormon was set in March, when a copy signed by early church leader Orson Pratt sold for $180,000 at Swann. This new sale bears out Ken Sanders' comment "you'll be hard-pressed to find any first edition sold for less than $100,000." So far, his prediction is holding up just fine.
