A £ 5 chess piece fetches £785, 000

A medieval chess piece bought for £5 and left in a drawer for years has been sold at auction for £785, 000.

The ivory figure is one of the five missing pieces from the historic Lewis Chessmen discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

The collection said to have inspired part of the plot in Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone dates back to between 1150 and 1200, and is believed to have been made in Norway when it ruled the Western Isles.

It comprises of 93 pieces but a knight an four warders or rooks are still missing. A shocked family last month found  out that chess piece their antiques dealer grandfather had bought for £5 in 1964, without realising its significance, was indeed one of the long-lost warders.

They told how is daughter had inherited it after he died and for many years was kept in the drawer in her home carefully wrapped in a tiny bag.

Sothbey’s expert Alexander Kader who examine the piece for the family said the missing Lewis chessmen’s estimated value between £600, 000 to £1miilion.

The Lewis warder piece will go up for auction in the Old Master Sculpture & Works of Art sale at Sotheby’s in London on July2.