NEW YORK, April 7 (UPI) — A chair that J.K. Rowling sat on while writing the first two “Harry Potter” books and painted sold at a New York auction for $349,000 on Wednesday.
The chair was sold as part of the Rare Books Signature Auction by Heritage Auctionsto an anonymous buyer.
Rowling painted the phrases “O, you may not find me pretty but don’t judge on what you see” and “I wrote Harry Potter while sitting on this chair,” which auctioneer James Gannon said made the chair more valuable.
A letter from Rowling was also included in the auction, containing a message in which Rowling pokes fun at the poor quality of the chair.
“My nostalgic side is quite sad to see it go but my back isn’t,” she wrote.
The chair was originally part of a set of four mismatched chairs that Rowling received for free while she was a single mother in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1995.
She first sold the chair at auction herself in 2002 for $21,000. It was sold again to current seller Gerald Gray in 2009 for $29,000.
Gray, who originally bought the chair for his daughter, said he will donate a portion of the earnings to charity.
“I plan to donate 10 percent to J.K. Rowling’s charity, Lumos, because that’s what she did in the first place,” he said.
