Handkerchief of beheaded king goes under the hammer

Now here’s a highly unusual bit of news for you:

PART of a handkerchief stained with Charles I’s blood after his execution is up for sale. The king handed the hankie to aide Colonel John Penruddock before he was beheaded in 1649. Penruddock dipped the linen in Charles’s blood.

Now the cloth – a quarter of the original hankie – is expected to fetch up to £3,000 at auction in Swindon, Wilts. Expert Chris Albury said: “This is a remarkable historical item.”

Definitely a collector’s item with a difference. Though people are always willing to buy and sell the most (and least) obvious crap. I remember having read that enterprising Germans have sold so many ‘authentic’ bits of the former Berlin Wall, that if you would put all of them together the ‘resurrected’ wall could give the Chinese Wall a good run for its money. I also remember people offering to sell Britney Spears’s hair after she had all of it cut off and there are also stories of people having offered money for the soiled tampons of Paris Hilton.

A handkerchief stained with the blood of a beheaded king, however, is still quite something. Though I’m sure you could find sites that offered bits of the car in which Diana, princess of Wales, bled to death.

Anyway, reading this bit of royalty news I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone has offered to sell that bit of pretzel on which George Bush almost choked to death. With all the millions and millions of avid fans this great president has around the world, it should be able to do much better at auction than a lousy £3,000.