Rare copy of classic book fetches £3k for Stirling charity store

Staff at a Stirling charity shop have said they are "thrilled" after an extremely rare edition of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit fetched a record £3,000.

- NICK FORBES

Rare find The much-loved classic was tucked among a pile of old children's books that was donated to the shop Thrilled The volume became the highest-priced book ever sold by the branch when it found a buyer

The much-loved classic was tucked among a pile of old children's books that was donated to the Oxfam bookshop on Murray Place.

While most were well-worn school titles, one caused a “real buzz” among staff: an unusually scarce Longmans edition of The Hobbit, published as part of the Pleasure in Reading series aimed at primary school libraries.

Only about 1,500 copies of the edition were ever printed across two impressions, and it is believed fewer than 50 survive today.