A piece of toast believed to have been served to Prince Charles on the day he married Diana in 1981 has sold at auction for $350
A bidding war has broken out over a piece of toast believed to have been served to Prince Charles for breakfast on the day he married Lady Diana Spencer.
Two bidders fought it out over the telephone for the slice of white toast, which went under the hammer at Charles Hanson Auctioneers on Thursday.
The winning bidder paid STG230 ($NZ450) for the 30-year-old memento.
A spokeswoman for the auction house said: "The slice of toast went to a UK buyer. There were two telephone bidders fighting it out for the slice. It was exciting.
"There was a round of applause when the gavel dropped, then it was like 'Oh crumbs ... it's sold!'"
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More than 750 million people tuned in to see Charles marry Diana in St Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981.
The slice of toast was sold on behalf of Rosemarie Smith, from Derby.
She took it from a tray after visiting her daughter at Buckingham Palace just hours before the royal wedding.
The 83-year-old said: "At the time my daughter was a maid at the Palace and one of her duties was to collect Prince Charles's breakfast tray from outside his room.
"I was with her in the corridor and saw that Prince Charles had left some toast on the tray. I had been thinking about a keepsake from the wedding and saw the toast and thought to myself 'Why not?'"
She kept the toast in a cup on a shelf at home until the last year wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton made her curious about its value.
"I just wandered into the auctioneers out of curiosity and asked them if it was worth anything," Smith said.
"I was pleasantly surprised to hear them agree with me that it could be of quite some value to royal collectors."
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