Half-Smoked Cigar Lights Up Churchill Auction
LONDON (Reuters) - A half-smoked cigar that last saw action clamped between the jaws of inspirational British World War II leader Winston Churchill beat all expectations at auction on Thursday.
The butt of the cigar -- a trademark of the soldier, writer and politician who led the wartime coalition government from 1940 to 1945 and who last month was voted top Briton -- went for 2,270 pounds ($3,585) against top expectations of 700 pounds.
It was one of the quirkier items in the sale of memorabilia and literature through the ages at auction house Sotheby's.
Such was Churchill's taste for giant Cuban cigars, of which he consumed up to 10 a day, that he eventually had a class of cigar named after him.
The chewed and half-smoked remnant was alongside the pinstriped boiler suit that Churchill often wore during the war which was knocked down for 29,875 pounds ($47,170) -- in the middle of its expected price range.
But the centerpiece of Churchill's section of the sale -- a revolver and hip flask he had with him during his epic escape from a Boer prisoner-of-war camp in South Africa in 1899 and which were priced at up to 150,000 pounds -- failed to sell.
"Bidding went up to about 85,000 pounds and stopped there," a Sotheby's spokeswoman said. "But otherwise most of the Churchill items went at or above their pre-sale estimates."
The gun and the flask were given to the young Churchill by local mine owner John Howard who hid him for several days after his escape while the hue and cry died down and before sending him on his way to refuge in what is now Mozambique.
In the same auction, a vast archive of letters and first editions of Churchill's books which were expected to fetch up to 200,000 pounds were eventually sold for 275,794 pounds.
