Yes M'Lady, I said £19,000! Lady Penelope Thunderbirds puppet sold at Shropshire auction

The puppet, just 21 inches high, had been hidden away at the bottom of a wardrobe for 30 years until its owner passed away.

On Saturday it was the star lot in an auction at the Trevanion and Dean auction house in Whitchurch, where it certainly lived up to expectations.

With a starting bid of £15,000 it took less than a minute for telephone in internet bidders to drive up the price of the puppet to its selling bid of £19,000, a bid over the telephone.

Although the auction house was full there were no live bids in the room and people could only look in amazement as the hammer came down.

Professor Ruth Ashford, a Dean of Cheshire and Shrewsbury University is also a collector of dolls and runs Finley's Antiques over the Cheshire border.

"I certainly couldn't have bid for Lady Penelope but it was wondeful to see her," she said.

"She is in superb condition, beautiful and flawless. I have bought a could of prints, so I have had a good day."

The puppet is recognised as one of the most important pieces of film and entertainment memorabilia of the 21st century, a rare and one of the most complete puppets to ever be offered on the open market,

Auctioneer, Christina Trevanion who auctioned Lady Penelope herself, said she was contacted by a relative of the owner, who recently died in Buckinghamshire.

"He had seen me on the television as asked if I could auction Lady P," she said.

It took Christina about three months to research and authenticate the puppet.

"I have felt like Miss Marple, the detective work that we have done to ensure Lady P is what she seems," she said.

"I have grown very attached to her and am going to miss her."

The figure, an original AP Films, Century 21 Productions puppet dating from 1964 to 1968, would have been used within the original, pioneering Thunderbirds films that came to define the 1960's.

Miss Trevanion said the figure was the "jewel in the crown" of the owner's collection, but because of its immense rarity had been kept hidden away at the bottom of his wardrobe for 30 years.

"There have been many replicas made of the original puppets, and so it has been important to establish its authenticity before offering Lady Penelope on the open market," she said.

"We have had four of the world's leading authorities on Supermarionation authenticate the figure, including some of the original puppet operators and puppet makers on the 1960s Thunderbirds series."

"It has been a fascinating process to be involved in and has taken me far and wide, meeting some wonderful people including Sylvia Anderson's daughter Dee, whose eyes provided the model for Lady P's eyes."

Four different heads were made for the Lady Penelope puppet and the one auctioned was the one with a 'neutral' expression.

The head and body other body elements in this puppet were very likely to have been used in the Thunderbirds series and later productions such as Thunderbirds 6 and Thunderbirds Are Go.

Alterations and adjustments had been made to the original puppet with the head containing a replacement neck rod and lacking the track rod between the eyes and eye mechanism.

The upper arms and legs were believed original to the Thunderbirds productions although added to the puppet at a later date.

Her body is also believed to be an original AP Films/Century 21 Productions body although it is a later fibreglass version as opposed to the original bodies, which, due to their composition, turned costumes black.

Even the hands are not thought to be the original Lady Penelope hands but suspected to be from the jet flying, Angel from Captain Scarlet.

Trevanion and Dean would like to thank John Brown and Terry Curtis, who were character sculptors on the productions and Wanda Brown who was a puppet operator, for their assistance with researching this lot.