Margaret Thatcher leather handbag raises £25,000
An Asprey leather handbag owned by former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher has been sold for £25,000 at a charity auction. The Asprey handbag had been expected to attract up to £100,000 during sales at Christie’s organised by former UK politician Jeffrey Archer.
Baroness Thatcher was famously pictured with the bag as she stood with then US President Ronald Reagan in 1985. It was bought by an unnamed Cypriot.
The proceeds of the sales will go to Combat Stress, the British Forces Foundation and Debra, a skin condition charity.
The leather bag was owned by Baroness Thatcher for more than 30 years. Edwina Currie, a former minister in Baroness Thatcher’s government, said: “It wasn’t a shield, it was a weapon. It said, ‘I am Margaret Thatcher, I’m the boss, I’m in charge. I have all this power and I have control’. That was why the handbag was always so neat and tidy and black and shiny and dominant. It would go on the cabinet table.”
Baroness Thatcher used the bag to stay organised. “She used it as her filing cabinet and made herself notes during the day or at events and flourish them. She would open her handbag and she would have notes and thoughts about an event or questions about an issue, and you were not allowed to rummage in your own handbag, you had to have the answers in your head. She was allowed to use hers as an additional hard drive if you like.”
