Renee Woodleigh
Well, the cover has dragons on it and it’s sort of a dusty green in colour and it’s a canvas book. It’s been well loved. It’s in pretty good condition for its age and I’ve had it for 31 years.

Joel Rheinberger
Wow. And in pretty good condition, what does that mean? Is it pristine? Is it a bit…

Renee Woodleigh
No, it’s not pristine. It has a little bit of damage on the corners of the spine, but outside of that, the inside is perfect and the rest of the outside is perfect as well.

Joel Rheinberger
Right. And look, you can get book restorers too now who can paste down those errant corners and things like that. So where did you find this book 31 years ago?

Renee Woodleigh
Oh, it’s a lovely story. I love op shopping and have done for many years and I found it in the Vinnie’s shop in Huonville on the main street of Huonville and that shop is still there.

Joel Rheinberger
Did you have any idea what you were getting or were you just a fan of The Hobbit?

Renee Woodleigh
Look, yes, I had an idea that it had some value at the time and it did actually have its original dust cover. I remember looking over my shoulder, I was 19 at the time and thinking, does anybody in here realise that this is a first edition? I then took it home and I didn’t like the dust cover. I didn’t like the picture on the dust cover. I now love it, but at the time I thought mountains, I don’t really want to look at mountains, I want to look at dragons. So I threw the dust cover in the bin and I still have the visual in my head of looking at the dust cover thinking, should I throw the dust cover away? If I had the dust cover now, the book would be worth triple fold what it’s worth now.

Joel Rheinberger
How did you come up with your number, with $44,000, which is what it’s advertised for today?

Renee Woodleigh
Well, I had a look at some online book selling websites and I thought about the condition of the book and I’ve priced it below what it’s worth, just so that somebody in Tasmania will have the opportunity to purchase it.

Joel Rheinberger
So that’s the idea, you’d like to actually sell it locally?

Renee Woodleigh
That’s correct, yes.

Joel Rheinberger
Do you think there’s going to be many people in Tassie who have a lazy 44 grand to spend on a book?

Renee Woodleigh
Well, Tassie’s changing, isn’t it? I’ve been approached already with a potential buyer, yes.

Joel Rheinberger
What made you think of selling it now, Renee?

Renee Woodleigh
Well, I have a friend who needs some help, so I was hoping to help them without going into too much detail. And some of the proceeds from the book I would like to donate back to the op shop and also to the school where the book was won as a prize back in December of 1937.

Joel Rheinberger
How do you know it was won as a prize?

Renee Woodleigh
Well, it has a little sticker in the front of the book which states that it was given as a prize at Kingham Hill School, which is in the Cotswolds in England, and it was presented to a W. Parker for French in Form 5. So he obviously was very good at French and won the book as a prize, and it was actually dated and signed by the warden of the school in December 1937.

Joel Rheinberger
Well, that is lovely. I particularly love the idea of giving back to the op shop, Renee. I think that’s admirable. Have you spoken to any book experts about this? Maybe thought of an auction house? Could I suspect get more? I did see a maybe slightly better version of the book, a slightly less ragged version of the book sell in England a couple of years ago for £44,000, which is worth probably $100,000.

Renee Woodleigh
Look, I suppose I’m a bit of a novice at this, and no, I haven’t really approached anybody directly. I did my own research, and I’m estimating the book is worth, in its current condition, somewhere between $50,000 to $70,000 Australian dollars, potentially more with the story of the prize winner. So I did contact the school, and they are currently researching who this, I’m assuming it’s a man, W. Parker was or is, because my calculations, if he was in Form 5 in 1937, that he would be around the age of 97 to 100 years old now if he was still alive.

Joel Rheinberger
Okay then, and it’s only like one in 10,000 people, I think, that get to that kind of age these days.

Renee Woodleigh
And an interesting fact about the book is that only 1,500 of them, first editions, were printers. They sold out very quickly. I’m not sure when they first came out in that year, but they were sold out by the December of the 1937, and there’s only believed to be 200 of these books in circulation currently.