Video: Gandhi's spinning wheel makes £110,000 at Ludlow auction
The spinning wheel once owned by Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi has raised almost double the expected asking price at auction in Shropshire.
The artefact was expected to raise about £60,000 when it went for sale at an auction at Ludlow Racecourse yesterday.
But instead it raised £110,000 and was the most expensive single lot at the sale.
Gandhi's will – which provides insight into his thoughts on the future – was also up for sale and fetched £20,000 at the auction held by Mullock's.
The spinning wheel was used by Gandhi in the early 1930s to spin thread and make his own clothes in Pune's Yerwada jail.
He had been imprisoned by Britain for his support of Indian Independence.
Mullock's website said Gandhi "devised a portable spinning wheel that folds into a bundle about the size of a portable typewriter and has a handle for carrying.
It said: "When unfolded for use it is operated by turning a small crank which runs the two wheels and spindle of the device. Gandhi worked out the details of this machine, it is reported, while he was confined to the Yerwada jail in India.
"He often mentioned that his daily spinning was a form of meditation."
Mullock's historical expert Richard Westwood-Brookes said the wheel was important as it demonstrated how people could be self-sufficient, making their own cloth.
The portable spinning kit, or charka, was regularly carried by the Indian leader who was born in 1868 and assassinated in 1948.
Gandhi gifted the charka to the American Free Methodist missionary, the Revd Floyd A Puffer, who was a pioneer in Indian educational and industrial cooperatives. He invented a bamboo plough that was later adopted by Gandhi.
Mr Westwood-Brookes said: "This was the most that one single lot went for but we had plenty of other items which went for £10,000 or £20,000.
"We are very pleased."
The auction house is not able to say who the new owner of the spinning wheel is, as the identity of bidders is kept anonymous.
Last year, three Gandhi items, including a pair of his spectacles, were sold by them for £128,000
And in February this year Mullock's set a record with a letter from Gandhi fetching £115,000.
In May a collection including his sandals, shawl and other personal effects topped £250,000.
