Buyers sweep up Nadir's treasures

Buyers fought to buy a Hoover at Christie's South Kensington yesterday. The Hoover came not with the promise of a holiday, but a guarantee that it was owned by Asil Nadir, the fugitive businessman who jumped his pounds 3.5m bail, writes Dayla Alberge.

It was among 120 items removed from his Eaton Square flat by the trustees of his estate in bankruptcy. About 250 people packed the saleroom, taking the total to more than pounds 70,000, three times over estimate.

For the Hoover that knew every nook and cranny of Nadir's two- bedroomed flat, someone paid pounds 88 (a new one costs pounds 120); for a personal massager that presumably knew every nook and cranny of Mr Nadir's body, someone paid pounds 71.50 (which also bought them his hair-dryer).

Nadir's two watches attracted particularly keen interest. Just weeks after a watch with an inscribed message to Nadir brought about the downfall of Michael Mates, the former Northern Ireland minister, a watch with a personal inscription on a card from his son sold for pounds 418.

It was bought by Michael Bowkett, director of Bow Scaffolding and Plant Hire, based in Chelmsford, Essex. He also went home with a Polly Peck perspex paperweight, and a bestowal certificate to Commander Sir Asil Irfan Nadir from the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta.