The $30 million hymnal that could end up being the world’s most valuable book is a tiny publication believed to be the first book ever printed in what is now known as the United States of America.

The 1640 book could sell for as much as $30 million, according to a report by TheBlaze and the Associated Press.

Only 11 copies of the Bay Psalm Book survive in varying degrees of being complete. Members of Boston’s Old South Church have authorized the sale of one of its two copies to auction house Sotheby’s on November 26.

The church, which owns the book, was established in 1669. It is where Benjamin Franklin was baptized and Samuel Adams was a member of the congregation.

Rev. Nancy Taylor, senior minister and CEO of the church said of the hymnal, “It’s a spectacular book, arguably one of the most important books in this nation’s history.”

At one time, the church owned five copies of the small 6-by-5-inch hymnal. The other copies three copies are with the Library of Congress, Yale University and Brown University.

Rev. Taylor said that the church voted to sell one of its two remaining copies and that both are in excellent condition. The goal of the sale is to increase its grants, ministries and “strengthen our voice in general as a progressive Christian church.”

The Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony published the hymnal in Cambridge, Mass., only 20 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

The book was supposed to be a faithful translation into English of the original Hebrew psalms, because puritans believed selected paraphrases would compromise their very salvation. The 1,700 copies created were printed on a press shipped from London.

The hymnal has a yellow titled page, adorned with decorative flourishes that reads: “The Whole Book of Psalmes, Faithfully Translated into English Metre” and at the bottom, it indicates, “Imprinted 1640.”

Historians believed that an almanac may have been produced before the Bay Psalm Book, but Mark Dimunation, chief of rare books and special collections at the Library of Congress has said that the almanac was more of a pamphlet or broadsheet. It was not a book and no copy of the almanac exists today. He notes that in the Americas, books were printed in what is now Mexico as early as 1539.

Dimunation said that the Bay Psalm Book is “an iconic piece. It’s the beginning of literate America.” He added that, “American poetry, American spirituality and the printed page all kind of combine and find themselves located in a single volume.”