Charity-shop plate fetches £1,760

A collector's club was set up after Poole Pottery changed hands

A brightly coloured pottery plate bought at a charity shop in Hampshire for £1 was sold at auction for £1,760.

When Sandra Buckland, from Swanage in Dorset, bought the 1960s plate three years ago she did not realise it was from the world-famous Poole Pottery.

It was packed in a box in her loft and she only discovered its value after looking through a book on collectables.

On Saturday it was sold to an anonymous buyer for £1,760 at an auction house in Wareham.

John Condie, an auctioneer at Cottes Auctions, said: "She was over the moon.

"She couldn't contain her excitement and was telling everyone around her that she had bought it for £1 and couldn't believe what it was selling for."

Mr Condie said prices for works from Poole Pottery have rocketed since the company changed hands in December last year.

He said: "There has been a new collectors' club and we have certainly had more people at the sale than we did this time last year because a lot of people want to buy it."