Pencil believed to have belonged to Adolf Hitler sells for more than £5,000 in Belfast auction

A silver-plated pencil believed to have belonged to Adolf Hitler has sold for more than £5,000.

The pencil, which is inscribed with the initials 'AH' sold to an online bidder at Bloomfield Auctions in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The bidder paid £5,400 for the pencil, although it had been expected to fetch between £50,000 and £80,000.

It is believed the pencil had been given to the Nazi dictator by his long-term partner Eva Braun as a gift for his 52nd birthday on 20 April 1941.

It is also inscribed with 'Eva' in German.

The pencil was originally purchased in 2002 by a collector, and remained in their family.

A number of other items associated with Nazi Germany also went under the hammer on Tuesday.

An original signed photograph of Hitler sold for £6,200, after expecting to reach £10,000 - £15,000. A section of Swastika bunting sold for £170 and an armband sold for £190.

All items were bought by online bidders.

The wide-ranging military auction had been urged to halt the sale of the Nazi-linked items for moral reasons.

Chairman of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, described the Bloomfield Auction as an "insult to the millions who perished" in the Holocaust, as well as "the few survivors left, and to Jews everywhere".

However, the auction house maintained that the items were part of history, and those who buy them are "legitimate collectors".

They said they did not intend to seek or cause distress to anyone or any part of society.

Other items sold at the auction included historic British Army medals, deactivated guns and a rare Royal Pardon issued by Queen Victoria to Irish rebels convicted of high treason in 1869.