WHISKY GALORE BOTTLE MAKES £4,200 AT BONHAMS SCOTTISH SALE

NEAR SELL OUT SALE MAKES £92,000

A bottle of whisky salvaged from the “Whisky Galore” ship, The SS Politician, was sold today for £4,200 on the second day of Bonhams annual Scottish Sale in Edinburgh.   It was retrieved from the wreck of the ship in the 1950s or 1960s and was estimated to fetch £1,200 – 1,800.  The sale made a total of £92,000 and practically every bottle was sold.

The story of the SS Politician and its cargo of whisky is known round the world thanks to the novelist Sir Compton MacKenzie who based his book ‘Whisky Galore’ on the real life events.  The novel was later made into a very popular Ealing Comedy film.

In 1941, the ship set sail for Kingston, Jamaica with a cargo which included pianos, motor parts, bedding and 28,000 cases (264,000 bottles) of whisky. It ran aground in a gale off the Outer Hebrides near the island of Eriskay.  Islanders, from Eriskay and beyond, starved of whisky by war time rationing, systematically salvaged around 24,000 bottles before the authorities caught up with them.  Some of the looters were fined; some ended up in jail; few of the stolen bottles were recovered.  The hull of the ship was blown up by a frustrated local customs officer to put the whisky beyond temptation, prompting one anguished islander to exclaim, “Dynamiting whisky! You wouldn’t think there’d be men in the world so crazy as that!”

Whisky from the Politician rarely appears at auction.  In 1987, 8 bottles were retrieved from the wreck which still lies submerged off the coast of Eriskay and sold for £4,000. Despite extensive salvage efforts in 1989 only 24 more bottles were recovered.

For further sale information please go to www.bonhams.com/scotland

NOTES

Bonhams

Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world’s oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further five throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Boston in the USA; Toronto, Canada; and France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist areas. By the end of 2009, Bonhams had become UK market leaders in ten key specialist collecting areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, go to www.bonhams.com (Feb 2010)

Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, London, London W1S 1SR United Kingdom