(20 June 2017) It is a book that would set many a collector’s heart aflutter.
In 2010, a first edition of Birds Of America was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in London for more than £7.3 million, a world record for a book.
The book, a four-volume set of 435 life-sized paintings of birds, published in the early 19th century by American painter John James Audubon, took 12 years to complete.
Only 120 copies are known to have survived, including one in Japan, the only copy in Asia.
Mr Pote Lee, owner of Bangkok-based publishing firm iGroup, has long heard of the book and thought of acquiring reprints as the original is too expensive.
But he decided to give it a try and the result is 100 sets of reprints of the four volumes, which iGroup jointly published with Japan’s Yushodo Group. The two firms divided the sets equally between them.
The Straits Times has the story in full.
