Half-smoked cigar sells for $860

Half-smoked cigar sells for $860

A HALF-smoked cigar discarded by British war-time prime minister Sir Winston Churchill was sold at auction in England for more than £350 ($860)

The burnt remains were bought by a private collector at the auction in Liverpool.
According to the auctioneers, Churchill was smoking the cigar as he arrived to address a meeting at Blackpool's Winter Gardens on October 14, 1950.

He was told he would not be able to smoke in the ballroom where he was giving the speech so he stubbed out the offending cigar and handed it to a special constable, called RC Gillies, who was standing next to him.

Mr Gillies kept the cigar as a souvenir and it remained in his family until his relatives decided to put it up for sale.

A spokeswoman for auctioneers Outhwaite and Litherland, said the cigar sold to a collector, from the Liverpool area, for £365 ($897) including commission.

Churchill smoked his first cigar in 1895 at the age of 21 while in Cuba as a military observer.

In 1947 the Romeo y Julieta cigar company in Cuba named one of their cigars in his honour.

Last year a cigar case said to have belonged to the former prime minister sold for £8700 ($21,395).