Beef dripping from first Everest summit at auction

A tin of beef dripping that was taken on the first successful Mount Everest expedition is going up for auction in Devon.

The can of Colonial Beef Dripping was taken on the 1953 journey by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who were the first confirmed to reach the summit of the world's tallest mountain.

The 70-year-old food, along with a letter from E M Elliot detailing that it came from the house of Mike Westmacott, a British mountaineer from Torquay who was also a member of the expedition, is set to go under the hammer at Bearnes Hampton Auctioneers in Exeter on Wednesday.

Brian Goodison-Blanks, head of the maritime retirement sporting department, said it had a "unique history".

Goodison-Blanks said: "It's innocuous in itself, but with that sort of history, it could potentially do very, very well."

He said the auctioneers have suggested it could make between £100 and £150, or potentially more when it opens for bidding on Wednesday.

Goodison-Blanks said there was collectors "worldwide" who enjoyed these sorts of pieces from expeditions relating to the Arctic, Antarctic and in particular Mount Everest.

The auction house said Westmacott and his team of Sherpas assisted in keeping the camps on the mountain well supplied and went on to have a "successful mountaineering career" in his own right being elected president of The Climbers Club between 1978 and 1980.

"To actually think they had to carry several pallets of these cans up and down to various base camps at different stages to keep them supplied," Goodison-Blanks said.

"I think if you're at the top of Mount Everest, one thing you're not going to celebrate is beef dripping, you'd rather champagne, but it was the sort of thing that was practical and useful for them."

This is not the first time this auction house has had interesting and quirky food items including Queen Victoria's wedding cake which sold for £700 and an "unusual" round egg selling for £460.

Goodison-Blanks said the tin itself had some "patternation and rusting" on it and the label was a "bit worn".

"Anything in its original condition is always sought after," he added.

"I'm not going to open it and it looks like it'll survive a few more years.

"It's an interesting thing to have survived 70 years."

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