1. Codex Leicester – $30.8 million ($49.2 million in 2016)
Codex Leicester is one of the most famous scientific journals of Leonardo da Vinci from the year of 1500s. It consists of 72 pages of handwritten muses and theories that is in relation to everything ranging from water movement to fossils and moon glow.
This manuscript is the closest notebook of the writer and thinker. It was first purchased by Thomas Coke in the year of 1717 who was appointed as the Earl of Leicester in 1980s.
Then, in 1994, this notebook was taken over by Bill Gates at a journal auction for price value of $30,800,000, thus making it one of the most expensive books in the world purchased till date.
Gates also had this book scanned and used as the screen saver of the Windows 95 of Microsoft Plus!
