Discovered in a house in Derbyshire, England, the chocolate Easter egg has survived for nearly a century in its owner’s home, the Second World War and its multiple relocations.
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The story of this chocolate Easter egg offered in 1924 is unusual. Christine Lilian Metcalf was only 2 years old at the time when her aunt, Poll offered her the treat presented in the form of a doll. Attached to the object, the little girl will never eat it and will prefer to store it carefully in the chest of drawers in her bedroom, only to take it out on rare occasions to show it proudly to those around her.
“Mom used to take the egg out every now and then to show it to her children and grandchildren. You were allowed to touch it, albeit with care., tells her daughter at Derbyshire times. My mother was born around the First World War. Her family weren’t rich and she didn’t have much when she was little. This egg was very precious to her and she wanted it to stay that way forever. “
Easter egg auctioned off at a museum
The egg, now 97 years old, survived WWII and 10 moves. Its owner who died in 2019, auctioneers made the strange discovery in the chest of drawers of the deceased. And the care taken by the nonagenarian during all these years has made it possible to keep it successfully. “You can still smell the chocolate. The egg is in remarkable condition, having been protected by a decorated egg-shaped envelope covered with violets. The chocolate egg is decorated with a paper with a doll’s head on it. the top “, details the auctioneer Mark Laban of the company Hansons.
Sold at auction and estimated at only a hundred pounds, the family of Christine Lilian Metcalf hoped “that it would be bought by a museum or a collector capable of cherishing it as much as our mother did,” says her daughter. It is now done.
Estimated at only a hundred pounds, it was finally the Bygones Museum in Torquay in the South of England which acquired the chocolate egg at a price of 1040 pounds sterling. Made by James Pascall Ltd in Mitcham in South London, it should shed some light on British chocolate making at the time.
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