A silver-plated pencil purportedly owned by Adolf Hitler failed to meet expectations on Tuesday when it sold for a fraction of its estimated price at auction.
The personalized writing utensil, which sold for less than a 10th of its anticipated value, was given to the Nazi leader by Eva Braun, according to a report.
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Estimated to fetch upward of 80,000 pounds, or about $100,000, the pencil was sold off for 5,400 pounds, or about $6,700, at a Bloomfield Auctions sale in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The auction had been heavily criticized by the European Jewish Association, who demanded the pencil be removed from the sale, the report noted.
The pencil was sold along with other items in the category of “militaria, police, and important Irish historical items.”
Such items included an autographed photo of Hitler and Nazi paraphernalia, according to the report.
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“I understand why some people may struggle to understand why items like these are sold and collected,” Bloomfield Auctions Managing Director Karl Bennett said prior to the sale.
However, he posited that such items “preserve a piece of our past and should be treated as historical objects, no matter if the history they refer to was one of the darkest and most controversial in recorded history.”
