Original Jingle Bells sheet music sells for £19,000 165 years after Xmas classic written
18th December 2022
The eight page document was published in 1859, two years after its creator, James Pierpont, originally wrote it under the title 'The One Horse Open Sleigh'
The original sheet music for iconic Christmas song 'Jingle Bells' has sold at auction for £19,000, 165 years after the festive classic was written.
Written in 1857 by James Pierpoint, the song is actually an American classic about Thanksgiving and as such it used to have a very different title.
The eight page document was published in 1859, two years after its creator, James Pierpont, originally wrote it under the title 'The One Horse Open Sleigh'.
There was no mention of Christmas in it and it was written as a winter song associated with the practice of sleigh riding in north America.
But Pierpont then added a drawing of sleigh bells to the cover of the sheet music around the new title of 'Jingle Bells' and it then became more associated with Christmas time.
Thirty years later it was turned into a record and became the very first Christmas hit that remains one of the most famous today.
Only one other first edition copy of Jingle Bells exists and that is in a museum in New York.
