SMALL FORTUNES
THEY may be tiny but some little things are worth big bucks! A miniature hand-written book by Charlotte Bronte, right, has sold for more than £500,000. Known for penning classic Jane Eyre, the writer wrote the matchbox-sized work in 1830, aged 14, for her toy soldiers. But it’s not the only small thing with a big price tag, as JAMES MOORE reveals…
RECORD RUNABOUT: The Peel P50 was the smallest production car ever made, measuring 54ins by 39ins. Only 100 of the three-wheel motors were made on the Isle of Man and originally cost £199 each. But in 2016 a red model, from 1964, went for £120,000.
WEE DRAM-ATIC: Earlier this year a single whisky liqueur miniature was auctioned for a record sum. The 5cl bottle of Old Orkney “0.0” dates back more than 80 years and made £4,000.
BIG SPENDER: The rare 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar may measure little more than an inch across, but it was one of the first coins produced in the US so sold for £7million in 2013.
FAB FIND: Last year a five-inch ornament was valued at £1m on Antiques Roadshow. The Fabergé glass flower had been kept under a soldier’s bed.
JUST SMASHING: A Chinese bowl with a diameter of 5ins sold for a record £28m in Hong Kong in 2017. The “extraordinarily rare” porcelain dish dates back over 900 years but was designed for simply washing dishes.
LICKS THE LOT: The world’s most expensive stamp, measuring just over 1in, is the British Guiana 1856 one cent magenta. The only known example sold for £7.4m in 2014.
VAN-TASTIC: A Dinky toy that can fit in the palm of your hand was sold for £19,000 in 1994. The van, marked WE Boyce, was in mint condition and made before World War Two.
HAIR-RAISING: A lock of hair belonging to singer Elvis Presley made a heady £90,000 when it was sold at auction in 2002. His canny barber had held on to the King’s stray strands.
STONE ME: Star Trek actor William Shatner sold his tiny kidney stone for £14,000 to an online casino in 2006, raising cash for a housing charity.
STROKE OF LUCK: A painting sized just 20cm by 26cm was found in an elderly French woman’s kitchen. The work by 13th-Century Italian artist Cimabue went for £20.7m last month.
SHOT UP: The world’s smallest gun, Le Petit Protector, is a French-made firearm that can be worn as jewellery and fires 4mm rounds. They are reckoned to be worth about £1,500 a pop.
HOUSE ABOUT THIS: A one-bedroom home in London’s posh Chelsea, measuring 8ft across, made £714,000 in 2017 despite needing renovation.
UNDIE THE HAMMER: People’s smalls can go for big sums too! In September a pair of pink knickers once owned by Adolf Hitler’s wife Eva Braun sold for £3,700 to a collector who unsurprisingly remained anonymous.