00:00A first edition of The Hobbit is set to sell for thousands at auction
00:04after being discovered during a routine house clearance.
00:08What a find.
00:08Before we go, the story of The Hobbit.
00:11You know, the story, the quest to reclaim a kingdom,
00:14stolen treasure from a fearsome dragon, that kind of thing.
00:17Well now, a first edition copy is going on sale in Bath
00:20and it could be worth a small fortune.
00:23Jonathan Holmes reports.
00:24It's a story that's known to millions across the world
00:27with several huge blockbuster films.
00:30But it all started with this very book, titled The Hobbit,
00:33or There and Back Again.
00:35Author J.R.R. Tolkien dreamed up the first lines
00:38while marking exam papers as a teacher.
00:40There was one page on this particular paper that was left blank, glorious.
00:45Nothing to read, so I scribbled on it, I can't think why.
00:47In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.
00:50I think that was eventually published in 1937.
00:53That 1937 print run was limited to just 1,500 copies,
00:58so they're now worth a small fortune.
01:00This one going up for sale in Bath has an estimate of £10,000 to £12,000.
01:05We found it in a routine house clearance locally.
01:09It was on a shelf.
01:10There were lots of bookshelves in this property.
01:12Most of them were just mid-century books,
01:13but this was just there, just a little diamond in it amongst everything else.
01:18A true first edition of it.
01:19We couldn't believe our eyes.
01:21Along with its rarity, it's the condition of the book which makes it so valuable.
01:26The majority of examples you do see come to the market are a little bit tattered
01:29and a little bit tired-looking, whereas this one, it's been on a shelf since 1937.
01:35Nobody's opened it, nobody's touched it, so it was just so exciting.
01:39The Hobbit's first edition has rare drawings done by Tolkien himself,
01:44and this book sat on a shelf for decades,
01:46with the previous owner seemingly unaware of how much it could be worth.
01:50It's always, always been highly collectible,
01:53so for nobody in the last 50, 60, even 70 years to have kind of noticed and thought,
01:59ooh, should we do something with that?
02:02It blows my mind, to be quite honest.
02:05It really, really is.
02:06It was such a huge surprise for us to find.
02:09The book goes up for auction on the 6th of August,
02:11and it could bring in nearly as much gold as Bilbo found under the Lonely Mountain.
02:16Jonathan Holmes reporting.
