They have updated the Auction Notice

Sold for US $55,000 Trotter edit $68,750 according to website. (LanceFormation edit: Well, sold for $55,000, but Christie’s also adds a 25% buyer premium to the hammer price which amounts to an additional $13,750…so yes technically $68,750. And there could be more fees for the sale outperforming the maximum estimate of $40,000, local taxes and shipping.)

Mr. Underhill wrote:

I think it brings the value of the book way down. A twice restored dust wrapper is getting close to facsimile territory.

I would hope that if I'm the person who put up 40K for it, that I would be allowed to retract the bid if I wanted.

Also, as a side note, when items like this come up for auction shouldn't the houses run these by us first for an accurate evaluation?

It really depends how much restoration has been done, and it could be a lot or it might just be the head and foot of the spine that were copied from a Mark Terry facsimile. Restoration *should* be done reversibly, so it can be removed, but I guess if not, you would just cut out the bad bits and replace again. The restoration to the top is undoubtedly quite extensive (the spine, quite deeply, and about two thirds of the runes on the rear). The bottom restoration includes about a third of the GA&U logo. Their images should show the back of the wrapper so that the extent can be seen.

It would have been better unrestored (I think restoration on books of this significance and value is best avoided, personally)

Numerous Runes sections have been 'restored' on this dust-jacket, not just the spines. The restorers appear to have cut any rune out and applied it. I suspect they just thought it was decorative so did not matter and no-one could tell.

Trotter wrote:

Numerous Runes sections have been 'restored' on this dust-jacket, not just the spines. The restorers appear to have cut any rune out and applied it. I suspect they just thought it was decorative so did not matter and no-one could tell.

Indeed, the work is quite major on this jacket when you look. Even a cursory look at the photographs shows large swathes of restoration. It would be a pain to rectify as it involves removing and replacing a lot of paper than painting it up again. Whoever did the restoration should be taken out and shot, tbh. Wouldn't be a bad job if they had bothered to rectify it with the correct runes, but to get it so wrong is unforgivable.