Prince Charles’ wedding toast sold

Reuters

A slice of toast is seen on a plate commemorating the Royal Wedding of Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana, before its auction in Etwall, Derbyshire.

A piece of toast believed to have been served to Britain's Prince Charles for breakfast on the day he married princess Diana in 1981 sold Thursday for £230 (about R2 957), an auction house said.

The mother of a former servant at Buckingham Palace kept the royal wedding day souvenir, which was the subject of a bidding war at Charles Hanson Auctioneers near Derby in central England.

“There were two telephone bidders fighting it out for the slice. It was exciting,” a spokesman said. “There was a round of applause when the gavel dropped then it was like 'Oh crumbs... it's sold!'“

The piece of toasted white bread was owned by Rosemarie Smith, whose daughter was a maid at the palace on the morning of the wedding on July 29, 1981, which was watched by 750 million people around the globe.

“At the time my daughter was a maid at the palace and one of her duties was to collect Prince Charles's breakfast tray from outside his room,” Smith, 83, said in a statement.

“I was with her in the corridor and saw that Prince Charles had left some toast on the tray. I had been thinking about a keepsake from the wedding and saw the toast and thought to myself 'Why not?'“

The piece of toast stayed in a cup on a shelf at her home until last year, when she started to wonder if it would be valuable, due to international interest in the wedding of Charles and Diana's son Prince William to Kate Middleton.

“I just wandered into the auctioneers out of curiosity and asked them if it was worth anything,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised to hear them agree with me that it could be of quite some value to royal collectors.” - AFP