A BLACKTHORN walking stick once owned by James Craig has sold for £10,000 at an auction in Belfast.
The sale at a Belfast auction house on Tuesday went for a fifth of the total paid for a stick belonging to Michael Collins at the same auction last month.
The blackthorn stick with silver collar belonging to unionist leader Craig, who became the north's Prime Minister following partition, was originally expected to sell for up to £5,000.
Following its purchase for just £30 several years ago by an English private collector, who bought it as part of a bundle of similar sticls from an antique store, its historical significance was only discovered when the new owner polished a silver collar on the item.
An inscription was revealed explaining the walking stick had been a gift to Craig, commemorating a 1925 visit to Lurgan by the Ulster Unionist Party leader, who died in 1940.
It was sold as the star lot at yesterday's bidding at Bloomfield Auctions in east Belfast, and went to an online buyer.
In September, a similar blackthorn stick belonging to another major figure in early 20th century Irish history, Michael Collins, sold at Bloomfield Auctions for £52,000.
The buyer was businessman Louis Fitzgerald, who said he plans to display the republican icon's stick at one of his bars in Dublin.
Following the sale of Craig's walking stick, auctioneer Karl Bennett said: "When we look back at history it's typical that a lot of the Irish republican items do go for a lot more than the unionist items."