Maggie’s handbag goes for £7,000 at auction

A handbag previously owned by Margaret Thatcher has sold  for well above its estimate in a  Shropshire auction.

Halls of Shrewsbury had offered the grey Chaumet evening bag for sale last week with an estimate of £4,000 to £6,000.

But in the end, the bag sold for massive £7,000 – with the winning bidder coming from the South West of England.

The former Conservative Prime Minister, was synonymous with the handbag – often described as “her weapon”, and was rarely seen without one.

The controversial politician was born and raised in Grantham, where a statue of her stands on the town centre green.

The  term ‘handbagging’ entered the vocabulary as a playful description of the dressing down that Baroness Thatcher would mete out to political opponents and ministers who failed to live up to expectations.

Alexander Clement, a senior valuer at Halls, said: “It is slightly more than it made originally at Christie’s when it was sold there so we are very pleased with that.”

It was sold in a 2015 auction, going for £6,800.

He added: “It is not every day you get to sell a piece of British cultural history of that sort and it certainly generated a lot of pre-sale interest.”

He described the bag, which features a cabochon sapphire set into the clasp, as “extraordinary”.