Kray twins sale fetches £100,000

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Personal possessions of notorious gangsters the Kray twins have fetched more than £100,000 at auction.

Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who ran a gang in London's East End in the 1950s and 1960s, were both jailed for murder in 1969.

The biggest bid was for two pairs of cufflinks belonging to Ronnie, which fetched nearly £15,000.

Chiswick Auctions sold 160 lots including clothes, poems by the brothers and paintings by Ronnie.

One buyer paid £7,400 for a letter to the brother from the artist Francis Bacon.

Spokesman for Chiswick Auctions, William Rouse, said: "It was extraordinary, and there's been an extraordinary group of people in the sale room.

"The interest has been phenomenal from the beginning."

He added that more than £50,000 was spent by one buyer.

Lots included photographs signed by actress Patsy Kensit, TV presenter Fern Britton and musicians Barbara Streisand and Mark Knopfler, which sold for a total of £1,310.

One of Ronnie's oil paintings, Crucifixion, which was given to a guard at Parkhurst prison, sold for £4,800, while another fetched £3,200.

Ronnie Kray's art works have been steadily increasing in value as they have become popular with collectors.

Last year, eight of his oil paintings fetched £16,000 at an auction in Suffolk.

A solicitor's letter to Reggie Kray explaining his refusal for parole in May 1995 was sold for £600.

He was eventually released in 2000 aged 66 because of his deteriorating health, and died shortly afterwards. Ronnie Kray died in prison in 1995 aged 61.