An original “criminal card” for Michael Collins, issued by British intelligence during the War of Independence, sold at auction in Dublin yesterday for €4,000.
The fold-up, pocket-sized card was used as a memory aid by policemen hunting for the most wanted man in the British empire. The buyer, a private Irish collector who did not wish to be named, told The Irish Times that he “got a bargain” – he believed the memento was worth up to €10,000.
Hundreds of items of historical memorabilia went under the hammer at Mealy’s auction in a Ballsbridge hotel, including various letters written and signed by Collins. A medical swab used to clean Collins’s dead face was withdrawn last week.
A ticket to Croke Park for the infamous Tipperary v Dublin football match on Sunday, November 21st, 1920 – which became known as Bloody Sunday – sold for €1,100.
An expenses claim sent by British hangman Thomas Pierrepoint to the Department of Finance in Dublin sold for €500.
Pierrepoint regularly travelled to Ireland from his home in Yorkshire following independence because the newly established Irish Free State had no local hangman.
