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London, Aug 11 (AFP): A slice of cake from the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer sold for 1,850 euros ($2,558) at auction in Britain on Wednesday — with a warning not to eat it.
\nThe 40-year-old slab of marzipan and thick white icing decorated with the royal coat of arms fetched more than three times its asking price of 300 euros to 500 euros.<\/p>\n
“We were amazed at the numbers of people wanting to bid on this large and unique piece of royal cake icing,” said auctioneer Chris Albury, a royal memorabilia specialist at Dominic Winter Auctioneers in Cirencester, western England.<\/p>\n
“There were lots of enquiries from bidders, mostly in the UK, the USA and several countries in the Middle East,” he added in an email.<\/p>\n
The successful bidder comes from Leeds in the north of England, Albury said.<\/p>\n
The cake was originally given to Moyra Smith, who worked for Queen Elizabeth II’s mother at her Clarence House residence in central London.<\/p>\n
Following Smith’s death, her family sold it at the same auction house in 2008 for 1,000 euros to a private collector, who has now sold it at a profit.<\/p>\n
“It appears to be in exactly the same good condition as when originally sold, but we advise against eating it,” the auctioneers said.<\/p>\n
‘Handle with care’<\/p>\n
The cake remains as Smith kept it, wrapped in cling film in a cake tin that she labelled “Handle with care” and dated 29 July 1981, the day of the wedding.<\/p>\n
The auctioneers said the slice came from a multi-tier cake served to staff at Clarence House, where Smith worked in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Apart from the main wedding cake, there were around 22 other cakes supplied by manufacturers for the royal occasion, the auctioneers said.<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s lot included order of service and ceremonial programmes for the wedding, a royal wedding breakfast menu and a table seating programme from Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n
Pieces of Charles and Diana’s wedding cake still regularly go on sale and interest remains strong despite the break-up of their marriage and divorce in 1996.<\/p>\n
A piece of wedding cake in an original commemorative box sold for $2,240 in the United States in December, according to Julien’s Auctions.<\/p>\n
The sale is the latest example of the continued fascination with Diana, who died aged 36 in a high-speed car crash in Paris in 1997.<\/p>\n
In June, her old Ford Escort — an engagement present from Charles — was bought by a South American museum for more than 50,000 euros.<\/p>\n
In 2019, a midnight blue velvet gown she wore when she danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985 was put up for sale for between 250,000 euros and 350,000 euros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, Aug 11 (AFP): A slice of cake from the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer sold for 1,850 euros ($2,558) at auction in Britain on Wednesday — with a warning not to eat it. The 40-year-old slab of marzipan and thick white icing decorated with the royal coat of arms fetched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-168913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}