Unique Dinky van fetches £6,400

The van had been expected to fetch up to £10,000 at auction

A one-off Dinky toy fetched £6,400 when it went under the hammer at an auction in East Sussex.

The Austin A40 van was a promotional prototype for Omnisport, a store in El Salvador, in the '50s and is said to be the only one of its kind in the world.

The 3in (8cm) toy is painted light blue and has the words Omnisport Todo Para El Deporte painted on the side.

Wallis & Wallis Auction House in Lewes, East Sussex, sold the van to an unnamed telephone bidder.

Experts consulted

The toy, which had been expected to fetch up to £10,000, was sold on behalf of a local dealer who bought it about five years ago from a man who had worked in South America in the 1950s.

Auctioneer Glenn Butler said its significance was not realised until various experts had been consulted.

"The chances of this happening are incredibly slim - it's like somebody finding a Constable painting that wasn't known to exist before," he said before the auction.

"A normal van of this type could reach between £2,000 and £4,000."

Dinky toys became popular in the early 1950s, with most of the detailed models of cars, lorries and even horseboxes, having a scale of about one to 48.

Although Dinky toys had no rivals at first, competition from other toy-making companies meant that they progressed to having working features such as opening doors and boots.