'Beyond our wildest dreams': Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's library nets nearly $2.4 million in auction

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in a discussion during the Library of Congress National Book Festival at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday, August 31, 2019.

A single book that sold for over $100,000 was among the items that sold at the auction.

The auction of more than 1,000 of Ginsburg's books and other manuscripts generated bids that were beyond our wildest dreams, according to Catherine Williamson, specialist of fine books and manuscripts at Bonhams, which sold the collection.

In a phone interview, she said she thought the auction would be between $300,000 and $500,000. She told CNBC after the auction ended that the total sum of all final bids was $2,354,510.

The online auction ended Thursday afternoon, the same day that Justice Stephen Breyer announced he will step down from the bench.

Most of Ginsburg's items had previously been sold at auction, so Bonhams was deliberately conservative in their estimates. The late justice brought a flood of attention and bidding interest to potential buyers that were younger than the Bonhams regular crowd of book collectors.

Ginsburg's copy of the 1957-58 Harvard Law Review was the top-selling book.

Ginsburg wrote her annotations in the margins of her legal tome. The book has a Ruth B. Ginsburg lettered in gilt on its spine.

The 166 available lots were sold in the auction, a success known as the "white glove" sale.

A book bound for Ginsburg by Simon and Schuster sold for over $81,000, one of the high-dollar lots.

Gloria Steinem's memoir "My Life on the Road" sold for nearly $53,000.

Ginsburg's status as a pioneer for women and a liberal stalwart gave her a progressive following that spanned the judicial sphere. Ginsburg became a pop-culture icon by the time she died.

Her library shows it. sheet music for the theme song of a documentary on Ginsburg is included in the collection. It sold for more than $30,000. The film and song were nominated for an Academy Award.

Bryant Johnson, Ginsburg's long-time personal trainer, wrote an inscription for a copy of "TheRBG Workout" in the collection.

You have made a difference with me, and I hope to pass that on to everyone I can. Johnson wrote in the book that you will always be a Super Diva.

Justice Breyer, a long time colleague of Ginsburg, said he would retire by the end of the court's current term around late June.

Stephen read the inscription to Ginsburg in a copy of his 2005 book "Active Liberty", which sold for nearly $18,000.