A pair of Queen Victoria's stockings has fetched £8,000 at auction in the Mackworth Hotel near Derby.
The black and white stockings were bought for the Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum in Nottingham by David Alcock, whose father-in-law Jack Smirfitt was a curator at the museum.
Mr Alcock, a 52-year-old mechanic from North Wales, saw off bids from as far away as Canada for the stockings, which were discovered in the loft of a former teacher.
The list price for the stockings in the auction's catalogue was £200.
After his successful bid, Mr Alcock said he bought the stockings for the museum on behalf of one its curators, his father-in-law, Mr Smirfitt, who died in May.
Helen Brownett, a curator at the museum, said: "They were probably made in Nottingham or Derby. It was really important to keep them local and where the public can see them. If they had been bought by a private collector the public wouldn't see them."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment