Full set of Cottingley Fairies pictures promote at public sale for £3,100

A whole set of world-famous Cottingley Fairies images, together with one the creator maintained was actual, have offered at public sale for £3,100.

The 5 photos had been taken between 1917 and 1920 by 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her nine-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths, within the village of Cottingley, close to Bingley in Yorkshire.

The hoax fooled many together with Sherlock Holmes writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was so satisfied of their authenticity that he revealed them in a nationwide journal in 1920.

Despite admitting 4 of the photographs had been faked in 1983, Frances all the time maintained the ultimate {photograph} was real.

James Laverack, from John Taylors Auction House in Louth, Lincolnshire, mentioned: “There has been some speculation that fifth photo might have been due to a double exposure on the same negative.

“That’s why she won’t have been conscious of the second publicity occurred, and that is why she believed that it was a real photograph of fairies.

“Or maybe fairies do exist,” he joked.

The women later admitted they used colored paper cut-outs and hatpins to stage their scenes, close to the stream on the finish of Elsie’s backyard.

The assortment was despatched to the public sale home in Louth by a household from Devon, who realised what the photographs had been after seeing them featured on the BBC Antiques Roadshow.

In July, two prints of the fairy images fetched £2,600 once they had been auctioned off.

Mr Laverack added: “Nobody knows how many were produced, they occasionally come up at auction but they are very rare, as most have been destroyed.”