# Biblia Latina, the 42-line Bible: the Library of Congress copy > Printer of the 42-line Bible, Johann Gutenberg - Mainz, between 1454 and 1455, not after 1456 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/johannes-gutenberg/gutenberg-bible-vollbehr-copy/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-23 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Printer of the 42-line Bible, Johann Gutenberg - **Date:** Mainz, between 1454 and 1455, not after 1456 - **Medium:** Printed from movable metal type on vellum, with rubrication, initials and headlines supplied by hand in red and blue - **Dimensions:** 42.5 cm as bound; leaf 407 x 300 mm; [643] leaves in three volumes - **Object type:** Printed book - **Period:** German, mid fifteenth century - **Current location:** Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Washington DC; on permanent display in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building - **Attribution:** attributed ## Summary The copy of the 42-line Bible that the United States bought in 1930: three volumes on vellum in sixteenth-century white pigskin, [643] leaves, printed at Mainz between 1454 and 1455, on permanent display in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. It is the St Blasius-St Paul copy, named for the two Benedictine houses that owned it for most of five centuries, and it is called the Vollbehr copy after the dealer who sold it.The number attached to it in every retelling, USD 1.5 million, is not its price. That was the appropriation authorised by Public Law 71-533 for Otto Vollbehr's collection of three thousand incunabula with the Bible included, and no apportionment between them was ever made. The congressman who carried the bill, Ross Collins of Mississippi, lost his Senate primary in 1934 to an opponent who asked what a million and a half dollars could do for a state knee-deep in depression. Later that year the House Un-American Activities Committee established that Vollbehr had spent most of the money on pro-Nazi and antisemitic propaganda inside the United States.Everything here turns on which copy is which. There are about 49 more or less complete copies, 12 of them on vellum. The Library of Congress states on one of its own pages that this is one of three perfect vellum copies and on another that it is one of four. Every plate below that shows another copy is labelled as another copy, and named. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **between 1454 and 1455-eighteenth century** Not established `[unknown]` (Printed at Mainz by the Printer of the 42-line Bible, Johann Gutenberg; first owner unrecorded) The catalogue record gives the imprint as [Mainz, Printer of the 42-line Bible (Johann Gutenberg) between 1454 and 1455?, not after 1456]. No owner is documented before the abbey. - **by the eighteenth century-1796** Benedictine Abbey of Sankt Blasien, Black Forest `[documented]` (In the abbey library; rebound in white pigskin in the sixteenth century for the Benedictines; described and engraved by the Prince-Abbot Martin Gerbert von Horneau in 1765 and 1767) The abbey's engraved bookplate survives on the front pastedown of each of the three volumes. Gerbert compared it with the 36-line Bible at Memmingen and published an engraving of the Genesis incipit. - **1796-1807** Benedictine monastery at Einsiedeln, Schwyz `[documented]` (Moved with the community on Napoleon's invasion) This stop is usually omitted from popular accounts. - **1807-1809** Kollegiatstift of Spital am Pyhrn `[documented]` (Moved again) Also usually omitted. - **1809-1926** Benedictine Abbey of Sankt Paul in Lavanttal, Carinthia `[documented]` (In the abbey library; presence documented there by a Gutenberg specialist in 1900) The catalogue record's provenance note reads: formerly in the Benedictine Abbey of St. Blasius in the Black Forest, after 1809 in the Benedictine Abbey of St. Paul in Carinthia. - **1926-1930** Otto H. F. Vollbehr `[documented]` (Arrangement made with the monks at Sankt Paul to buy the three-volume Bible; the book remained in Austria) The price Vollbehr paid the abbey is not established. Figures from USD 150,000 to USD 375,000 circulate and trace back to a single second-hand account. It is not the price the United States later paid. - **3 July 1930-present** United States of America, Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division `[documented]` (Purchased by Act of Congress: Public Law 71-533, chapter 860, authorising an appropriation of USD 1,500,000 for the Vollbehr collection of 3,000 incunabula together with the Bible. Arrived in Washington on 3 September 1930) No official apportionment of the appropriation between the Bible and the rest of the collection was ever made. Library staff travelled to Austria to complete the transfer. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - The copy described in this record has never been offered at auction. It came to the United States inside a bulk purchase of three thousand incunabula and no separate price for it was ever set. The sale below is of a DIFFERENT copy and its figures must not be read as a value for this one. It is given because it is the last Gutenberg Bible auction for which a source separates the hammer from the premium in words. - **1987-10-22** Christie's, New York, - Estimate: 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 - Hammer: 4,900,000 - With premium: 5,390,000 - NOT this copy. The Estelle Doheny copy, sold for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and bought by Maruzen Co. Ltd of Tokyo. UPI, quoting the Christie's spokeswoman Lily Zimmerman, gives USD 4.9 million plus a ten per cent commission of USD 490,000, which is the clearest hammer-and-premium statement in the literature of this book. The lot was one of 131 incunabula in the first of seven sales for the archdiocese. ## Open questions - Is the Library of Congress copy one of three perfect vellum copies or one of four? Its catalogue record says three and names the Bibliotheque nationale de France and the British Library; its research guide says four and adds Gottingen. Both statements are live on the same website. - How is the copy 'perfect' when the catalogue collation says leaf [642] is wanting? The missing leaf is almost certainly a blank, but the point should be settled against White's census at pp. 307-353 rather than assumed. - What did Otto Vollbehr actually pay the abbey of Sankt Paul in 1926? Reported figures run from USD 150,000 to USD 375,000 and all of them descend from one second-hand account. - Was any part of the USD 1,500,000 appropriation ever apportioned to the Bible as distinct from the other 3,000 incunabula? No official apportionment has been found, which is why every 'price of the Gutenberg Bible' figure for 1930 is an invention. - Did the Austrian authorities intervene in the export, and on what terms? An export fee and a state-driven increase in the price are reported, but only through a single chain of retellings, and no Austrian or German source has been consulted here. - What was the hammer price at the 1978 sale of the last complete copy to come to auction, as distinct from the price including premium? No source reachable from this desk separates them, so no figure is printed here. - Can the sixteenth-century bindery be identified from the roll-stamp designs? The Library suggests the tooling may help; nobody has done it. ## Sources - [1] Library of Congress catalogue record, Biblia Latina, LCCN 52002339, MARC21 record, giving the collation, binding, rubrication, press variants and provenance note for the Library's copy. - [2] Library of Congress, 'The Library's Copy of the Gutenberg Bible', The Gutenberg Bible at the Library of Congress: A Resource Guide. - [3] Library of Congress, 'Frequently Asked Questions', The Gutenberg Bible at the Library of Congress: A Resource Guide. - [4] United States Government Publishing Office, govinfo metadata for Public Law 71-533, chapter 860, H.R. 12696, 'An Act Authorizing an appropriation for the purchase of the Vollbehr collection of incunabula', 46 Stat. 1012. The page images in the Statutes at Large are scans and carry no machine-readable text. - [5] Martha H. Swain, 'Ross Collins and the Incunabula', Journal of Mississippi History 76:1 (2014), pp. 1-18. Peer-reviewed; text extracted directly from the journal PDF at this address. - [6] William K. Rashbaum, 'Record $4.9 million spent on Gutenberg Bible', United Press International, 23 October 1987, quoting the Christie's spokeswoman Lily Zimmerman. - [7] World Digital Library description of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek copy of the Gutenberg Bible, giving the census as 49 more or less complete copies, 12 on vellum and 37 on paper; reproduced on the Wikimedia Commons file page. - [8] Wikipedia, 'Gutenberg Bible'. Tertiary, used only for orientation. Flagged for replacement with Eric Marshall White, Editio Princeps: A History of the Gutenberg Bible, Harvey Miller, 2017, whose census at pp. 307-353 is the authority the Library of Congress itself cites. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.