Alcoholics Anonymous’ ‘Big Book’ collection up for auction
LOS ANGELES — A collection of 19 first-edition copies of the founding document of Alcoholics Anonymous, known to adherents as the “Big Book,” will be auctioned off in Los Angeles next month.
The auction house Profiles in History said Tuesday that the collection will be part of a single lot that includes a 1940 stock certificate used at the time to raise funds to continue printing the Big Book.
The books are signed by the founding members of AA.
They were collected over a lifetime by Ken Roberts, who last year put up for auction the original working manuscript for the Big Book. It sold for $2.4 million to Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.
The first-edition collection is estimated to sell for up to $500,000 when it hits the block July 11.