SALT LAKE CITY -- A rare Book of Mormon and a hymnal each sold for $180,000 during an auction this week.

The purchase price for both items is believed by some Mormon scholars to be among the highest ever paid for historic documents associated with the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The hymnal had been expected to sell for less than $40,000 and the first-edition Book of Mormon for less than $90,000, said Rebecca Weiss, a media relations representative for Swann Galleries in New York.

"You never know what will happen at auctions," Weiss said.

The books were sold to buyers bidding by phone, she said. The auction house doesn't identify bidders or buyers.

The first-edition Book of Mormon was signed by early LDS Apostle Orson Pratt. An inscription by the book's original owner, Denison Root, indicates "the book was a gift from Hyrum Smith," brother of church founder Joseph Smith.

The first editions of the Book of Mormon were printed in 1830.

The hymnal, titled "A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," was compiled by Smith's wife, Emma, and was published in Nauvoo, Ill., in 1841.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D2.