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Buyer of Harry Potter Prequel Seeks to Use Item for More Charity Fundraising

News
Posted by: Sue
June 11, 2008, 11:47 AM

The buyer of the new Harry Potter prequel, which you can read online via this link to Waterstone’s or this new link, says he purchased the special note card donated by J.K. Rowling in hopes that he will be able to do more for charity. Bloomberg.com reports the new owner of the Harry Potter prequel note card sold last night at a charity auction in London, England, is Hira Digpal, president of a Tokyo-based investment-banking consulting company, Red-33. The article notes that the new owner “who originally had a closed bid of 50,000 pounds before halving his offer, said he faxed a letter to Rowling’s publisher asking for the author’s cooperation to use the story in a way that would raise more money for charity. He declined to give details of the proposal. “Here I am, owning a piece of literary history,’’ said Digpal in a phone interview from Tokyo. “I think I got a bargain. Hopefully, we can raise much more than the sale.’‘

As we’ve reported several times previously, this note card featuring a short story involving Sirius Black and James Potter 3 years before Harry was born, along with the 12 other cards from various authors such as Tom Stoppard, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood among others will be published on August 7 by Waterstones, with proceeds to benefit English Pen and Dyslexia Action in the UK. At this time we do not know what other efforts may be made with the card for charity, however pre-orders for the book containing the Harry Potter prequel card are available via this link.

Last night proved to be an exciting time for the auction. Bloomberg continues to describe how Mr. Digpal ended up winning the card, saying “Digpal’s bid topped the offer of one of the crowd of 100 guests who attended the event, conducted by Sotheby’s auctioneer Edward Rising at Waterstone’s branch in Piccadilly. The Rowling lot attracted interest from only one bidder in the room. “I told them, if it gets past my limit, call me—wake me up,’’ said Digpal, 36, a Briton who received the news that he’d won at 5:27 a.m. “I was thinking of buying stocks, but the market’s been very volatile. It’s a good investment for when I kick the bucket in 30, 40, 50 years’ time.’’ ...

Asked why the auction had been an invitation-only event, without participation from the general public, Johnson said: ``We felt this was the best way to do it. This was a charity auction. It wasn’t exclusively about making money.’‘

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59 Comments

Thio

LOL, emmy! Yeeeeey!!! Someone likes me!! I kinda lost hope when I asked my mom if she loved me and she replied: ‘neh…’

And why can’t I make cars fly using a drumstick!! What’s the point in taking those drum lessons then?

Posted by Thio on June 11, 2008, 02:53 PM report to moderator
Lionpaws

I loved the story, it was so funny!

Posted by Lionpaws on June 11, 2008, 02:54 PM report to moderator
emmy

ok, totally irrellevant to this article, but: in the Italian Tuscany, they discovered a real life unicorn!! Only it’s not a horse, it’s a deer or a reebok (not sure what the word is in English).

One of these days, I’m telling ya, one of these days Harry Potter will turn up as well..!!

Posted by emmy on June 11, 2008, 03:02 PM report to moderator
LeakyParker

It was hard for me to read her writing. But that might have been because it was really late at night last night!

Posted by LeakyParker on June 11, 2008, 03:09 PM report to moderator
Weird One

OK is it me or what? I have gone through the various postcards and I can’t read most of the handwriting. Was able to stumble through JKR’s and enjoyed it but geez, did they all go to medical school before becoming authors???

Posted by Weird One on June 11, 2008, 03:16 PM report to moderator
Tanvi

yeah emmy – im sure harry will turn up!

Posted by Tanvi on June 11, 2008, 03:16 PM report to moderator
shelby

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get any new cannon on the card but it was still interesting to read. As for it being bought by a non-Potter fan- the money goes to charity, we get to read it, why does anyone have a problem with it??

Posted by shelby on June 11, 2008, 04:12 PM report to moderator
Aurora Duv

That’s so cool, the buyer has a name that JK would probably use in her books.

Posted by Aurora Duv on June 11, 2008, 04:41 PM report to moderator
Christy

Good fun! Wish it had been something a bit more…surprising…but I guess she’s already revealed all she can about the characters and this time, she just wanted to have a little fun!

Posted by Christy on June 11, 2008, 05:02 PM report to moderator
Aurora Duv

That is neat to have in mind that they had order of the phoenix t shirts made and of course those two would have the guts to wear them! Wish I knew which death eaters got smashed with the car.

Posted by Aurora Duv on June 11, 2008, 05:10 PM report to moderator
BlueWizard

Very fun story, though without giving too much away, I was baffled as to why they would be carrying chicken legs in their back pockets. Though eventually I figured it out.

For those who don’t know, an A5 size card is like standard personal stationary; about 5.8”x8.3”.

Posted by BlueWizard on June 11, 2008, 06:49 PM report to moderator
Ian

my friends and i read it at school, and we gave up on reading it because we couldnt make sense of it! We’re gonna wait till its typed up on the net somehwere…

Posted by Ian on June 11, 2008, 07:16 PM report to moderator
Ian

Now that i’ve read it, the ending makes NO SENSE! Who are the people on brooms?!

Posted by Ian on June 11, 2008, 07:27 PM report to moderator
moose

I actually thought it was pretty easy to read once I sat down and forced myself. It was difficult to read at first, but the first few lines are the worst. Keep going. It’s a rather good read. However short it may be.

But I think it was rushed quite a bit. Her other handwritten pieces aren’t as messy = )

Posted by moose on June 11, 2008, 07:39 PM report to moderator
Ian

I definitely enjoyed it, its just i dont understand the random people on brooms crashing into the police car bit?! Who are they?!

Posted by Ian on June 11, 2008, 07:53 PM report to moderator
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