It may be just a wooden chair, but it certainly has plenty of magic associated with it – which raises its value considerably, especially among Harry Potter fans.
The seat author J.K Rowling occupied while writing the first two of the bestselling Harry Potter books, was recently sold at an auction for a bewitching amount of $394,000.
The chair received this winning bid at a sale held by Heritage Auctions in New York, but it has been through two auctions already. All three have benefited children’s charities, as per the wishes of J.K. Rowling.
The simple 1930’s oak piece was one of four mismatched chairs that someone gave to Rowling in 1995, when she was living in Edinburgh, struggling to make ends meet as a single mom.
Since it was the most comfortable of the quartet, Rowling says she stationed it in front of her typewriter and spent many hours every day on it, transferring the stories in her head to the blank pages. The first two books published by Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, were both written while sitting on this chair.
The words ‘I wrote Harry Potter while sitting on this chair’, are inscribed on the piece and it comes with a personally signed letter from J.K Rowling, which makes it a coveted prize for any Harry Potter fan who can afford it.