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Bottle of beer sells in Wiltshire for £10,000

12:59pm Saturday 14th November 2009


The world record price for a bottle of beer was smashed in Devizes today when a bottle of Lowebrau lager sold for over £10,000.

The bottle was recovered from the wreckage of the German airship Hindenburg after it burst into flames as it moored at Lakehurst, New York, on May 6 1937.

It was part of the collection of survivor Richard Kollmer.

The previous highest price for a single bottle of beer is thought to be around £2,500 and auctioneer Alan Aldridge started bidding at £3,000.

There was fierce competition from telephone bidders all over the world, mainly from the US. Mr Aldridge eventually knocked the item down for £9,400.

With buyer's premium, the bottle will cost the purchaser £10,810.

A brass medallion presented to Herr Kollmer by the Nazi Party on his return home was also up for sale and fetched over £8,000.

An electro-plated milk pitcher, also recovered from the wreckage, went for over £9,000.

The prices for the Hindenburg memorabilia dwarfed those for items connected with Elvis Presley, Diana Ross, Peter Sellers and Paul McCartney.

A tiny strand of hair from Elvis Presley, no more than 12mm long, went for £850, more than three times its estimate.

A fragment of Kapton Foil from Apollo 11, the first manned mission to land on the Moon, sold for £2,000, the marital settlement agreement between Peter Sellers and Lynne Frederick also went for just over £2,000 and a rare legal document from the early days of Walt Disney Productions fetched nearly £3,000.


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Your Say YourWiltshire

Triton, Calne/Devizes says...
1:46pm Sat 14 Nov 09

£10,000 for a bottle of beer? The Bear Hotel in Devizes has been charging that for a few years now.

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Interested1, Devizes says...
12:16am Sun 15 Nov 09

Last week we were informed in the Wilts Gazette that "a 12 by 22 inch piece of hair" belonging to Elvis was being sold. This week it turns out that this was actually "a tiny strand of hair no more than 12 mm long". That's that sorted then .

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Triton, Calne/Devizes says...
11:53am Sun 15 Nov 09

Who, in their right mind, would pay £850 for a bit of hair that once belonged to an obese, drug addled, warbler like Elvis Presley?? And they say there is a recession on. Still, a fool and their money is soon parted.

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tonyshar, trowbridge says...
6:31pm Sun 15 Nov 09

should of gone to tesco, could of got 18 for a tenner !!!

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incomer, Malmesbury says...
2:50pm Mon 16 Nov 09

Come on G&H. After last weeks "hairgate" we now have a bottle of "Lowebrau" - although that's a fairly accurate description of the paper, the beer is actually Lowenbrau (as can clearly be seen on the bottle in the picture)...

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Hugh Briss, Chippenham says...
3:31pm Mon 16 Nov 09

Actually, it's "Löwenbrau".

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Triton, Calne/Devizes says...
3:58pm Mon 16 Nov 09

Yeah, but who in their right mind would pay £10,000 for a manky old bottle of beer which is undrinkable?? I thought that we were in hard times at the moment what with the recession.

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incomer, Malmesbury says...
1:00pm Tue 17 Nov 09

Hugh Briss, you're quite right. But I couldn't get my keyboard to do the umlauts, otherwise I would have put the other one in as well, over the "a".

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Hugh Briss, Chippenham says...
8:33am Wed 18 Nov 09

You're right, incomer!
hold down & press 0246 on numeric keypad for ö.
Alt 0228 for ä incidentally.
Oh, joy, pedants unite!
PS try Alt 0128 (for €) up to 255 (for ÿ)
PPS if you have a pc that is

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Hugh Briss, Chippenham says...
8:34am Wed 18 Nov 09

That should have read "hold down Alt key, type 0246 on numeric keypad, release Alt key".

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Triton, Calne/Devizes says...
5:54pm Wed 18 Nov 09

You boys need to get out more.

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incomer, Malmesbury says...
12:21pm Thu 19 Nov 09

Get out? Don't understand, does not compute... öä!

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The bottle of beer that survived the Hindenburg disaster The bottle of beer that survived the Hindenburg disaster


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