Pencil allegedly owned by Adolf Hitler sells for tenth of valuation at Belfast auction house

A silver-plated pencil allegedly owned by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler has sold for a tenth of its pre-auction estimate at a Belfast auction house.

The pencil, which is believed to have been given to the former Nazi dictator by his long-term partner Eva Braun as a gift for his 52nd birthday on April 20, 1941, sold for £5,400 at Bloomfield Auctions in East Belfast.

The figure is far below the estimate of between £50,000 and £80,000.

The pencil was originally purchased by a collector at an auction in 2002 and since then has remained in the collector's family.

An original signed photograph of the German leader, expected to sell for between £10,000 and £15,000, is also going under the hammer.

The wide-ranging sale also includes a rare hand-written pardon by Queen Victoria dated to 1869 for Irish rebels convicted of treason and articles of agreement for a treaty signed between Great Britain and Ireland, which includes hand-written notes by former Irish unionist leader Edward Carson.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, had last week urged the sale of the items belonging to the Nazi leader was halted for moral reasons.

However the auction house stressed that the item is a part of history, adding those who buy such items are "legitimate collectors who have a passion for history".

They insisted they did not seek to cause hurt or distress to any one or any part of society, adding: "All items have a story and tell of a particular time in history."

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