A spoon lying among ‘Ikea-style cutlery’ has sold for a whopping £2,375 at auction due to its medieval appearance.
An unnamed man spotted the battered-looking spoon with a long and thin handle while visiting a car boot sale in London. He bought the spoon for just 20 paise and approached the auctioneers named Lawrences Auctioneers, of Crewkerne, Somerset.
A silver expert, Alex Butcher, identified it as dating from the late 13th century and put on a conservative estimate of £500, according to The Sun.
The spoon was hammered down at £1,900 following a fierce bidding war on the day of the sale, with extra fees, the internet buyer paid a whopping £2,375 – almost 12,000 times the amount spent at the car boot fair, the report said.
The expert said, “The finder is not a silver dealer but someone who goes to car boot sales as a hobby – but clearly has a good eye. He went over to a stall where there was an assortment of Ikea-style modern cutlery, but amongst it was this very old looking spoon.”
“He thought it was interesting so he bought it for 20p and contacted us through our website. When he described the spoon with its acorn knop I knew it was extremely old and once he sent it to us to look at I identified it as from the late 13th century.”
Butcher added the spoon’s “condition is consistent with it being buried underground or in a river bed for centuries. It is crushed and damaged, possibly from the weight of boats going over it. Both the vendor and I were delighted with the result. It is a wonderful, romantic story.”
The slender five-inch-long spoon weighs a paltry 0.35oz and features an acorn knop – the earliest post Roman-European style – and four sided stem. It is “in a damaged and contorted state”, said the auctioneers.
Mr Butcher believes that the spoon may have been buried underground or in a river bed for centuries before re-emerging.
