Dog-chewed Kammer & Reinhardt doll sells for more than £52k

The Kammer & Reinhardt company produced dolls in Germany from the 1880s to 1920

A dog-chewed doll which was ready to be thrown into a skip has been sold for almost £53,000 at auction.

The 1910 antique doll was sold at auction house Vectis on Teesside.

Despite having its foot chewed off by a puppy many years ago, a phone bidder from the US bought it for £52,675.

Vectis, based in Thornaby, said the "high quality" Kammer & Reinhardt doll, which was expected to fetch up to £17,000, was of a kind that only comes up for sale every 20-30 years.

The life-like dolls were based on real children and were made for adult collectors rather than youngsters.

But fashions changed in post-World War One Germany, and the mass market for such expensive dolls largely disappeared.

The doll was almost thrown away during a clear out

The unnamed seller previously said the doll belonged to their grandmother, before being passed down the family.

"He has always lived in the living room on the sofa for as long as I can remember and our late dog chewed his foot off when he was a naughty puppy," she said.

"My mum unfortunately is now unwell and, emptying her house, we found him again.

"Due to having so much furniture and mementos to sort out, we were having to be quite ruthless with what we were keeping so I put him on the pile of things to be skipped.

"However, my husband remembered the doll fondly and decided to put him in the 'to keep pile' and afterwards we realised how special he was."

Expert Kathy Taylor, of Vectis, said: "It's amazing that it made that amount of money, but it is a beautiful example of something that is very rare."

The antique doll was highly sought after, the auctioneers said