A 16th century Talmud printed by Daniel Bomberg sold for $9.3 million to rare books expert Stephan Loewentheil—who one source said was a proxy for private equity baron Leon Black—and set a world record for Judaica sold at auction.
The book is one of first complete editions of the Babylonian Talmud, all printed by Bomberg in the 1500s, of which only 14 copies survive.
The sale was the first of a series at Sotheby’s of the Valmadonna Trust Library, a collection of Jewish texts assembled by diamond dealer Jack Lunzer and his wife. The Bomberg Talmud was the cornerstone of the Valmadonna Trust. (It is named for a city in Italy where Mr. Lunzer’s wife has relatives and where some of the first Jewish manuscripts they collected came from).
The Bomberg is a rarity at auction, Jonathan Greenstein, president of J. Greenstein & Co., an auction house dedicated to Judaica, told the Observer. “It is in the top five rarest pieces of Judaica to come to auction in the last 20 years,” he said. “It is very early and important.”
https://observer.com/2015/12/looks-like-billionaire-leon-black-bought-this-extremely-rare-talmud/