J.K. Rowling’s Chair Auctions for Nearly $400,000

Last month, when Leaky reported that the chair J.K. Rowling sat on writing the first two Harry Potter book as a struggling single mother, the opening auction price was $45,000. It was sold for $394,000 at the auction earlier this week. Yes, nearly $400,000 for that little magical chair.

The seller of the chair, Gerald Gray, said that he would donate 10% of the proceeds to J.K. Rowling’s children’s charity, Lumos. Long ago, J.K. Rowling originally auctioned off the chair to benefit charity and Mr. Gray felt called to contribute to a cause. Lumos was gifted nearly $40,000 in donations from the chair alone.

The Belfast Telegraph reported on the auction, saying:

“I plan to donate 10% to J.K. Rowling’s charity, Lumos, because that’s what she did in the first place,” said Mr Gray, a businessman who runs a vehicle speed control equipment company in Manchester, and in Sarasota, Florida, called AutoKontrol.

He said he would like to see the new buyer display it somewhere where children could see it, perhaps in a museum or theme park.

He bought the chair in 2009 after his daughter, a Harry Potter fan, saw it on eBay.

Heritage Auctions, who hosted the auction of the chair, uploaded several images of the chair and wrote a lengthy description of it, saying:

A few years after the publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the chair was donated to a small auction in 2002 called Chair-ish a Child in aid of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). However, it was something that according to Rowling herself would have been “purchased from a junk shop for a tenner.” Rather than selling it in its original form, Rowling used gold, rose, and green paints to transform the chair into a magical piece of literary memorabilia.

On the stiles and splats, in gold and rose colors: “You may not / find me pretty ~ / but don’t judge / on what you see.”

Rowling signed the backrest in the gold and rose paints. Then along the apron of the seat: “I wrote / Harry Potter / while sitting / on this chair.”

For comparison, a handwritten manuscript of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2007 and purchased by Amazon.com for nearly $4 million, benefiting Rowling’s own charity, Lumos.

An incredible representation of a woman’s against-all-odds struggle to share her creative vision that is distinctly connected to and passed on by Rowling herself. This ordinary chair turned beautiful art piece is an incredible physical manifestation of a woman’s transformation into the modern world’s foremost literary figure. A small piece of history connected to the mythology of the Wizarding World and one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature: Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

The entire description of the piece, and more photos of it, may be read here . A video created about the chair, created for the auction, can be seen below.