A rare 2-volume Bible donated to an Oxfam bookshop in Chelmsford, Essex, sold for £56,280 at auction after volunteers spotted it in a pile of donations. Dating from 1815 to 1822, the Bible contains a Chinese translation produced by missionaries John Lassar and Joshua Marshman and was printed in Serampore, India. It had been estimated at £600 to £800 by Bonhams before the auction, but attracted two weeks of online bidding before selling for £56,280 on March 20, 2025. Oxfam said the proceeds from the sale would support its work tackling poverty and inequality.
Volunteers spotted the Bible before it reached the shelves
The Bible was discovered by Oxfam volunteers Chris Tyrrell and Eleanor Atack at the charity’s Chelmsford bookshop. They suspected that the unusual volumes could be valuable and kept them from being placed on the shop floor for an ordinary sale. The discovery was subsequently referred for specialist assessment, with Bonhams putting an estimate of £600 to £800 on the Bible before the auction. The final price was more than 70 times the top end of that estimate. The online auction ran for two weeks before closing on March 20, 2025, when the Bible sold for £56,280. Oxfam’s Chelmsford shop manager Nick Reeves said the team had been surprised by how high the bidding climbed.
The Bible dates back to the early 19th century
The 2-volume work dates from 1815 to 1822 and was translated by John Lassar and Joshua Marshman. The translation was produced in Serampore, India, where Marshman was part of the Baptist missionary community that established the Serampore mission and later founded Serampore College. The Bible was published in a series of parts, with the Pentateuch appearing first in 1817. Bonhams described the completed work as the first complete Bible in Chinese. Lassar, an Armenian scholar, collaborated with Marshman on the Chinese translation. The work was produced at a time when Serampore had become an important centre for missionary printing and translation in the region.
The rare book vastly exceeded its auction estimate
Before the sale, Bonhams estimated the Bible at between £600 and £800. The eventual £56,280 price represented a dramatic increase over that valuation. The Bible was sold as part of a Bonhams auction featuring rare books donated to Oxfam shops. Oxfam said the Bible was among 23 other books, meaning 24 Oxfam books were represented in the sale altogether. Together, the books raised more than £105,000 for the charity. Other notable works offered in the auction included books by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien and Roald Dahl. The collection included a first edition of A Christmas Carol, a first edition of Pride and Prejudice, a first edition of The Lord of the Rings and a signed copy of Matilda.
Oxfam’s rare-book sales turn donations into funds
The Chinese Bible was an unusually valuable discovery, but Oxfam regularly sends particularly rare or collectable donated books to specialist auction houses rather than selling them through its ordinary shops. Ian Falkingham, Oxfam’s donated goods strategy lead specialising in books, said the charity was grateful for the rare and unusual books donated to its shops. For the Chelmsford team, the Bible demonstrated the potential value hidden among ordinary donations. What initially appeared to be an old pair of books in a pile of donated material ultimately became the most valuable item in the auction, generating £56,280 for Oxfam’s charitable work.