First edition of Anne Frank’s Secret Annex found at thrift shop – DutchNews.nl

A thrift shop in Bergum in Friesland which saved a first edition of Anne Frank’s Het Achterhuis (the Secret Annex) from ending up in the trash has sold the book for €3,550.

“A colleague who spotted the book in a waste paper container wanted to buy it herself, saying a book of such historic importance shouldn’t be thrown out,” Omrin Estafette manager Andries Jan Hovinga told broadcaster NOS.

“But I couldn’t just give it to her and we googled a bit on the computer at the office and found it was a first edition. Then felt we were on to something,” he said.

Just 3,036 copies of Het Achterhuis were published in June 1947. The following December a second edition of double that number appeared and three months later some 10,500 copies were printed.

The book has since sold millions of copies in 70 languages.

A first edition of the book was sold in 2021 for €10,000, considerably more than the book found in Borgom which, like other copies, lacked a dust cover.

Hovinga was quick to put the book up for sale on auction site Marktplaats where the starting bid of €250 soon mounted to thousands of euros. The final bidder, who is not known, got the book for €3,550.

“We get lots of books, some in very bad condition, Our policy is not to put those up for sale. This one almost slipped through the net. We joke about it now but we are happy it was saved from the incinerator,” he said.