Scripture and books of faith: the editions collectors look for

No books are read by more people, more often, than scripture, and none are more often mistaken for something valuable. Most of the "1611" Bibles offered online are facsimiles or nineteenth-century reprints, and a family Bible from the 1800s is usually worth more to the family than to a dealer. The editions that do carry value are specific, and this page gathers them: the first printings of the English Bible, the scriptures of the churches founded since, the world scriptures as first translated into English, and the devotional classics that study groups still read together.

The 1611 King James Bible, printed in London by Robert Barker, exists in two issues told apart at Ruth 3:15, where the first reads "he went into the citie" and the second "she". A complete He Bible in fine condition reached $380,000 at Christie's in the Doheny sale, and copies with leaves in facsimile or later bindings have sold for between about £13,000 and $60,000 since; the figures depend on completeness, the title pages and the Genealogies far more than on the date. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the Bible of Shakespeare and the Pilgrims; the Rheims New Testament of 1582 and the Douai Old Testament of 1609 gave English Catholics their text. The Book of Mormon, printed in 5,000 copies by E. B. Grandin at Palmyra, New York, in 1830, set its record of $240,000 at Potter and Potter in September 2025.

Each row links to the book's page, where the first edition is identified against two sources where we have them, its points are listed, and a value band appears once we hold recorded sales of that printing. For how to tell a facsimile from the real thing, see our guide to old Bible values.