While the US has found itself amidst an egg crisis, the same can’t be said for the British lands where a ‘one-in-a-billion’ egg, had people fighting to buy it in an auction. Find out what ‘egged on’ people to buy this egg!
A single egg in the United Kingdom was sold for a shocking £420, roughly $550 this week for its perfectly round shape. This rare egg was identified at the Fenton Farm, Devon by Alison Green, an egg handler at the farm. Four months after it was laid, the egg was put up for auction for an estimated £100-£200. However, an undisclosed buyer bought the egg for a shocking £420, double the estimate of auctioneers Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood.
In an interview with Telegraph UK, Green stated that she had handled almost 42 million eggs in her entire career and yet had never seen one as spherical as the egg sold in the auction. She explained how she found the egg, saying, “A few months ago I saw an egg moving strangely on the conveyor belt and picked it up.”
Image Credits: Ali Green/Fenton Farm
To prepare the egg for the sale, she preserved it in goose fat and salt inside a jar. This was because of a research she read that explained that before fridges were available in Ireland, people used to save their eggs using lard and salt. She also added that now the egg will be delivered to its new owner in a box laced with red satin and the earnings made from its sale will be donated to the charity, Devon Rape Crisis which supports survivors of sexual violence and abuse.
The owner of Fenton Farm, Andrew Gabriel also added in the interview that, “We’ve been doing this for 25 years. You get odd-shaped ones, but I’ve never found a purely round one. I don’t think anyone expected it. It’s amazing, though. At that price, I hope to find some more.”
What’s interesting is that this is not a first for the UK. A similar egg was sold to Ed Pownall in Berkshire for £150 by a Scottish woman who found it in her box of eggs. The egg was further put up in an auction and sold for £200. Another one found in a garden in Latchington in Essex in 2015, was sold for £480.
