For two hours on May 28 you could have spent £750 on a special, limited edition of The Devil May Care, the new James Bond Novel written by Sebastian Faulks. Published by Penguin in collaboration with Bentley, Bond’s car manufacturer of choice, each book comes in a burnt oak leather case sourced from the tannery in Italy which supplies the hides for Bentley’s interiors. Purchasers also receive a 1:43 scale replica of the modified Bentley R type that featured in Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. (The car never actually existed but Bentley based the miniatures on Fleming’s detailed descriptions.)

Would it have been worth it? From a purely financial viewpoint the answer seems to be a resounding ‘yes’. Only sixteen days later a copy has appeared on the Abe Books website priced at $3,500 (around £1,780). In just over two weeks the book has more than doubled in value.