A fragment of Adolf Hitler's desk from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin has sold for £6,200 ($8,188).
The piece had been valued at £500 ($660), an estimate it beat by an impressive 1,140% in an August 25 auction at Reeman Dansie.
 The marble paperweight is one of three in existence |
It was snuck out of the bombed out ruins of the building by the British Lord Balfour, who managed to grab a piece of the smashed desk without alerting his Soviet minders.
When Balfour got it home, he split it into three identical sections, which he had polished and made into paperweights.
One of these was presented to Winston Churchill.
The others were sold at auction.
This specimen was acquired by the actor Ronald Squire and is affixed to a wooden plaque bearing his name.
Auctioneer Lewis Rabatt explained in the run up to the sale: "It does not have Nazi insignia on it, so it may not attract interest in that sort of memorabilia, but market for militaria is very strong at the moment and the provenance adds more to it.
"The story is really what makes this special, being sneaked out of the Chancellery building right under the noses of Russian soldiers and whisked back to Britain, it is straight out of the pages of a Cold War spy novel."
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