The Book Of Mormon Worth $100,000 Stolen

Police investigations about a rare copy of the Book of Mormon, whose value was about $100,000, are underway inArizona.

The book was reported stolen from suburban Phoenix bookstore over the Memorial Day weekend.

This book was a leather bound volume from 1830 and had become a must-see artifact for young Mormons before they went on the church missions.

According to the officials, so far there is no specific information about the present whereabouts of the book.

He also said that most of the people do not realize how valuable that book was. The stolen book was one of the only 500 copies ever printed of The Book of Mormon, which happens to be the holy text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was published in 1830 by founder of the church, Joseph Smith who claimed that it was the translation of ancient reformed Egyptian text that he found written on golden plates.

These golden plates, he said, were found with the guidance of an angel near his home in New York State.

Owner of the book, Schlie, bought the first edition print in 1960s.

The fact that it was stolen was discovered when the book was to be retrieved for missionaries visiting from Asia.

Considering the frequency of requests to take pictures with that book, the cramped store has reserved a special place to take such pictures.

Schlie said that realization that the book has been stolen was a shock for her since it had become an integral part of her life.

Schlie has previously also been a part of a controversy in 2005 when she started selling the framed pages from the book at a price between $2,500 and $4,000.

But she said that she had been doing that to generate enough money to open up an ice cream parlor and earn money to support young Mormons for their missions.

Schlie had sold about 50 pages of the book when it was stolen. The present worth of the book was somewhere around $100,000.She said that the person who stole the book should return after reading it, considering its sacred value.