Most Expensive Books & Manuscripts Ever Sold
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Most Expensive Books & Manuscripts Ever SoldLeonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester tops this ranking at about 66.9 million dollars, the notebook famously bought by Bill Gates in 1994. A first printing of the United States Constitution follows at 51.3 million, showing how historic printed documents can rival unique handwritten manuscripts. Chinese calligraphy is strongly represented through letters by Zhao Mengfu and Zeng Gong, at 48.1 and 42.6 million, reflecting the enormous value placed on classical Chinese works. Religious texts also feature prominently, including the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon, the Codex Sassoon Hebrew Bible and the illuminated Sherborne Missal. The range, from 66.9 million down to 21.9 million, illustrates how rarity, historical importance and cultural significance combine to drive these record prices.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia (List of most expensive books and manuscripts)
- Coverage
- 10 entities · 10 observations
- Measure
- Record Sale Price (USD Millions)
- Last updated
- 12 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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