A rare Cadbury golden egg commissioned 43 years ago for a national contest has sold for £123,500 at Batemans Auctioneers in Lincolnshire. The 22-carat piece was expected to fetch between £15,000 and £20,000, but an undisclosed bidder paid six times the higher estimate on August 1.
The sale set a new record, surpassing the previous record price of £31,000 set for a golden egg in 2021. Auctioneers described the final six-figure sum as an "absolutely incredible" price.
Cancelled treasure hunt
Cadbury commissioned a dozen of the 250g decorative eggs for a 1983 contest. Organisers buried perspex caskets containing certificates across Britain, requiring participants to solve cryptic clues in a book titled 'Conundrum - The Cadbury's Creme Egg Mystery' to find the locations.
The chocolate company was forced to cancel the competition and its advertising campaign after receiving complaints from landowners angry about hordes of hunters digging up private property and protected sites. Only six of the 12 golden eggs were claimed before the contest was scrapped.
Finder Clive Pinder originally uncovered this egg in Cricket St Thomas, Somerset, and sold it for £6,500 in 2018. The buyer held the piece before putting it up for auction to make a sizeable profit.
Royal goldsmith design
Titled 'Cuckoo Cuckoo', the three-inch-high egg was created by royal goldsmiths Garrard & Co of London and based on the Cuckoos of Crewkerne folk tale. The egg is engraved and enamelled in translucent green and blue, depicting a cuckoo in a tree above several men who are staring and pointing up at the bird.
A spokesman for Batemans Auctioneers said the owner asked them to sell the item "to pass on the wonder and joy at owning such an incredible thing". Speaking to the BBC, Greg Bateman of the auction firm called the eggs "a fascinating piece of British cultural history".
