On a valuation day in a thrift store in Heemstede, a rare first edition of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl was discovered. The owner had once received the edition of the famous diary from his wife.
The owner took the book out of a plastic bag on the valuation day in March. “We discovered on the spot that it was a first edition,” says appraiser Pieter-Gerrit Binkhorst of Auction House Onder de Boompjes to NU.nl.
The auction house calls the find “quite exciting, because many books have been lost”. “We live in a world where less is read and a lot goes through the paper shredder. As a result, these books unintentionally become increasingly rare.”
There are tens of millions of copies of The Diary of a Young Girl because many different editions have been published. But the auction house says it rarely encounters a first edition. Only 3,036 copies of this were printed in 1947 under the direction of Anne’s father, Otto Frank. “Only occasionally does one pop up.”
The discovered copy in Heemstede has an estimated value of 4,000 to 6,000 euros. But the book could easily be sold for more. In Rotterdam, a copy was auctioned for 16,500 euros last spring. That edition still had the original fabric paper cover. The copy that will be auctioned in Leiden is missing that cover “but is otherwise in good condition.”
Charity organization Dorcas has several thrift stores in the country and organizes valuation days together with Auction House Onder de Boompjes. People can then bring items to see how much they are worth. The first edition of The Diary of a Young Girl was discovered on such a valuation day in March.