THE SOLD WAR
KGB spy gadgets auctioned after museum closes
FROM Russia with love... a “Kiss of Death” lipstick gun is among a haul of the KGB’s James Bondstyle gadgets for sale at auction.
Used by female operatives the gun carries an estimate of £1,500.
One of the weapons disguised as everyday objects is an umbrella with a poison syringe, valued at £3,700.
It is a reproduction of the brolly which is thought to have been deployed to assassinate the Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov in London in 1978.
Producing a needle tip from the end when the trigger is activated near the handle, the umbrella has a hidden spring-loaded syringe.
In Markov’s case, a pellet containing ricin was fired into his leg by a secret service assassin.
Amassed over 30 years by a European collector the items were displayed at the KGB Espionage Museum in New York.
But they have been forced to close down and sell off everything due to the coronavirus pandemic.
An ingenious array of hidden cameras are in the sale, with one in a necktie expected to fetch £2,200.
Other cameras are hidden in rings, purses, cigarette cases and briefcases. A pinhole surveillance camera allowing photos to be taken through a small hole drilled in a wall is valued at £4,400.
A Soviet shoe with a special compartment is set to sell for £500, while an oscillograph lie detector machine could fetch £600. A KGB ashtray with a hidden microphone bug has an estimate of £900, the same as a fake suicide tooth with a compartment for cyanide.
The lots are being sold by Julien’s
Auctions based in Beverly Hills, California, on February 13.
The firm’s Matthew Nolan said: “The relics belong to a KGB museum in New York which opened in 2019 but has had to close due to the coro
navirus. The European collector acquired them over the past 30 years. “They are like something out of a James Bond film, especially the Kiss of Death lipstick gun. It is really
chilling to think the weapons would have been used by the KGB.
“It is an incredible collection which will be of great interest to the market.”