A First World War era aeroplane propeller has seen its price soar after being sold by a Lichfield auctioneer.
The wooden item, measuring about 2.4metres fetched £1,050 in a sale at Richard Winterton Auctioneers.
The prop would have been fitted to a British SES 61 aircraft, a type which was widely used on the Western Front in the latter stages of the war.
Auctioneer Ben Winterton said:
“Items such as this come up very rarely. We had lots of interest in the auction and this propeller which once flew the skies sold for a fittingly high price to a UK bidder.”
Ben Winterton
The same sale saw a family archive with links to Lichfield sell for £1,600.
Running from the late 17th to the mid-20th century, the archive included documents, medals, badges, crests, photographs, birth, marriage and death certificates, wills and other ephemera relating largely to the Gibbons Mayne, Davis and Hancock families.
The majority related to the families of Reverend William Gibbons Mayne the younger and his wife Helen, including his Lichfield Cathedral ordination documents as priest and deacon dated 1885 and 1886.
Senior valuer Sarah Williams said:
“This was a fascinating archive to catalogue because it encompassed such a wide spectrum of different areas of collecting, from photography and silhouette portraiture to early military documents and travel papers.”
Sarah Williams
