Charlie Watts, the most private and unassuming member of the band, collected first edition books. Not very rock'n'roll, but very Charlie Watts.
The musician’s extensive collection of first edition books went under the hammer at British auction house Christie’s last week as part of a specialised sale, which saw F Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925, receive the highest bid, at £226,800 ($278,000).
As evidenced by the 127 items on sale, his love of literature leaned towards 20th-century British and American authors, with a particular interest in the crime and mystery genre.
A first edition of the Sherlock Holmes tale The Hound Of The Baskervilles sold for £214,200 ($263,000), which set a new world auction record for a printed book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, surpassing the previous record £165,279 ($201,600) for The Sign of Four, which was sold in 2022.
The rare copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles was inscribed by a personal message on the title page from Conan Doyle himself, who wrote: "I perambulated Dartmoor before I wrote this book." Watts lived 10 miles from the location of the book’s setting.
Charlie Watts also collected 25 Agatha Christie novels during his lifetime, with an "exceptionally rare" edition of the author’s 1932 mystery collection The Thirteen Problems selling for £60,480 ($74,000). This sale set a new world auction record for a Christie book.
The Thirteen Problems is notable for featuring the first appearance of Christie’s famous sleuth, Miss Marple, in the section titled "The Tuesday Night Club".
Watts, a member of The Rolling Stones since 1963, died in August 2021, aged 80. The musician was the longest-standing member of the group alongside Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards.
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