According to Raquel Eucliss, the head of the collections of Israel's National Library, sassoon roved around Europe and the Middle East and North Africa buying up old books, and by the time of his death in 1942, had amassed over 1200 manuscripts. Sassoon's estate was broken up after he died, and the codex was sold by Sothbees in Zurich in 1978 to a British Rail pension fund, which had started investing in art several years earlier for about $320,000