'Pawn Stars' guest brings 2 pages from the Gutenberg Bible and Rick Harrison paid a fortune for it
People can come to "Pawn Stars" with the most ordinary-looking items and be surprised by how much they are worth. Once a regular customer of Rick Harrison, Adam, sold a couple of pages from the Bible for $47,000. However, the two pages weren't from any ordinary Bible but belonged to the Gutenberg Bible, which is often referred to as the most famous book in history.
In the episode, Adam explained the provenance of the leaf and the story of how he got it. "I have brought for you the most incomplete book that I've ever brought to the shop. This is an actual printed page from the Gutenberg Bible, the very first printed book," he told Harrison. The pawn shop boss acknowledged that Gutenberg was the first one to invent the printing press, which ushered in a new era of printing.
"He had to invent the type, he had to invent the press that went in it. It was a massive undertaking," Harrison noted. "It's like the Internet to think how quickly they went from printing a book like this to having people copy the invention to go throughout Europe, setting up printing centers all through Europe within 50 years," Adam added.
The guest then explained why there was only a single leaf available to him. "In the 1920s, a famous book dealer named Gabriel Wells came upon an incomplete copy of the Gutenberg Bible, and he broke it up into single pages. He put it with a bibliographical essay, and he had it very beautifully browned, and he sold him a single page," he revealed.
He added that the book was printed on paper imported from Italy and was hand rubricated with colors to make it look more like a manuscript. "The Gutenberg Bible to this day is regarded as one of the most beautifully printed books," he added. He then shared that he bought the item at an estate sale, and the pages were from the Old Testament.
After learning all about the leaf, Harrison asked the big question, "How much do you want for it?" Adam told him to brace himself before demanding $65,000 for the pages. The pawn shop owner called in his rare books expert, Rebecca, to share an appraisal. "It's been decades upon decades since a Gutenberg Bible came to the market, and in the meantime, other books have gone for over ten million dollars," Rebecca noted.
"I don't think that I've had a chance at this length to really inspect one like this. It is a chance that most people are never going to get, even the book specialists," she said. Coming to the appraisal, Rebecca estimated that the item could sell for up to $80,000. "I think that is fair to ask for the way things are looking right now in the market," she said.
After the expert left, Adam asked Rick to quote a number that he would be comfortable with. Harrison, in typical fashion, cut the appraisal in half and offered $40,000 for the leaf. "I mean 40,000 just so on the low scale in terms of what I can I can take for it," Adam said in response. He then made a counteroffer of $55,000, but Harrison was ready to pay $45,000.
"I'm gonna offer it to you for $47,000, and it would be foolish for you to say no, and that is a price I did not imagine I would even agree to," Adam then said, making his last stand. Harrison wisely accepted the deal and shook hands to seal it.
"I have a CFO in an office right down the hallway that's gonna be really mad, but I now own a page of the Gutenberg Bible," Harrison said in the end.
