by Simon Bradley, swissinfo.ch
Blistering barnacles!
Tintin and Captain Haddock were luckier than most other explorers looking for the Yeti or Abominable Snowman (Castermann)
The hide is the main attraction on Wednesday at the Hotel des Ventes auction house. It was originally collected by mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary during his famous Yeti hunt to the Himalayas in 1960.
“It belongs to a private Swiss individual whose father bought it at Christies in London in 1978 for £1,200 (SFr1,640),” auctioneer Bernard Piguet told swissinfo.ch. “He was fascinated by its rarity and everything to do with Hillary.”
“It’s a blue bear from the Himalayas,” said Piguet. “But it was considered the Yeti until the expedition of Sir Edmund in 1960. He went there to find out if the Yeti was real or not.”
The New Zealand climber, who was one of the first men to scale Everest in 1953, travelled to the Himalayas with an American expedition in pursuit of the “Abominable Snowman”.
Categories: Entertainment, Switzerland