Winston Churchill cigar sells for £1,700 at Shrewsbury auction - with pictures
[gallery] Hopes that a half smoked cigar which was once owned by Sir Winston Churchill would sell for £2,500 went up in a puff of smoke at an auction today.
Instead the item, which dated back to the 1940s, was snapped up by a buyer for £1,700.
The cigar, with its distinctive red and gold Winston Churchill band, together with associated photographs and a letter from his secretary on House of Commons headed notepaper, are just one of the many lots to sell in the two day auction held at Halls' auction house at Battlefield, Shrewsbury.
Churchill, who led Britain to victory in the Second World War, served as Conservative Prime Minister twice, from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955.
According to Halls' Auctioneers, Churchill started smoking the cigar in 1947, after spending three days in Paris.
A photograph, which is also included in the sale, shows Churchill standing in the doorway of the Avro York MW101 aeroplane smoking the cigar before boarding a plane in France.
He stubbed it out in an ashtray where it was taken by Corporal William Alan Turner.A photograph, which is also included in the sale, shows Churchill standing in the doorway of the Avro York MW101 aeroplane smoking the cigar.
In addition to the photograph signed by Churchill, the letter from his secretary refers to returning three album pages containing 14 photographs of his visit to Paris.
