A small, world-record-breaking book has been sold for €4,200 in an auction in Brussels.
This leather-bound work, measuring 5mm by 5mm, contains versions of the Lord’s Prayer in Dutch, English, American English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish.
A private buyer snapped it up for €3,500 at Arenberg Auct‹ions in Brussels, although the price paid was actually €4,200 with additional costs. It had been valued between €1,000 and €1,500.
Auctioneer Henri Godts said: “The printed text is so tiny, you cannot read it with the naked eye, but a powerful magnifying glass is needed.”
“The copy has been in a collection for decades and is kept in a jewel box like a gem,” Godts said. You could even incorporate it into a transparent jewel and wear it around your neck, if you like.
In 1952, the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany, published a few hundred copies of The Lord’s Prayer to fund the reconstruction of the building after the Second World War.
Gutenberg Museum is one of the world’s oldest printing museums, named after the man who invented mechanical printing in Europe in the 15th century.
According to the US-based Miniature Book Society, miniature books measure no more than three inches in height, width, or thickness. The Guinness World Record for the smallest reproduction of a printed book is held by Teeny Ted from Turnip Town, measuring 70 micrometers by 100 micrometers. A micrometer is equal to 0.001 millimeters.
