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A pair of Queen Victoria's pants earnt a local collector a fortune at auction last night.
The personalised fine linen split drawers fetched £16,250 and were among David Gainsborough Roberts' "Out of the Ordinary" memorabilia sold at Christie's in London.
The late 19th century draw-string waisted knickers, embroidered with 'VR 36' beneath a crown went for thousands more than the £2,000 - £3,000 estimate.
A set of four keys from the Titanic fetched £20,000, double the high estimate. They belonged to Ernest Hemming, a lamp trimmer on board who helped prepare to lower and load the lifeboats on the night of the disaster and was put in charge of supplying htem all with lamps. Hemming himself was rescued from the icy cold water by lifeboat number 4.
The lot also included copies of letters, including his account of the disaster and copies of photographs of the crew and officers.
A soldier's beret that saw victory at El Alamein in 1942 realised £35,000, more than ten times its low estimate. It belonged to Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery who was commander of the first major allied victory at El Alamein.
Someone proved hungry for a slice of Queen Victoria's wedding cake from 1840, paying £1,500 for it, hundreds more than it was expected to go for.
Mr Gainsborough Roberts has spent the last forty years amassing an extraordinary selection of memorabilia from the worlds of film and entertainment, royalty and politics, sport, and travel and exploration. Altogether his collection in this auction went for £397,938.
(picture credit: James Mollison)
He said: “After collecting for over forty years the time has finally arrived to share my collection with the world. I hope my insatiable appetite for the curious, the famous and the infamous will inspire a new generation of custodians.”
The "Out of the Ordinary" sale of rare collectibles commemorates 250 years of Christie's, celebrating the unusual, the unique, the extraordinary and the exceptional. 90% was sold by lot and 93% by value and realised a total of £1,303,938.
The top lot of the sale was the Leica Camera Family Tree, an artwork displaying 107 Leica cameras that chart the history of renowned camera maker Leica from 1914 to 2014. It went for £362,500.
A gold medal from the 1904 Olympics that was awarded to American amateur golfer Robert E. Hunter sold for £206,500 against a pre-sale estimate of £20,000 - £30,000.
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