I looked this up because I found it hard to believe that bidders wouldn't look at the description because a word in the title was misspelled. The story was correct except for the outcome.
Validity of the Winning Bid
When you see such a large dollar amount for the winning bid, you have to question the validity of the bids. Looking at the bid history, we see one of the early bidders maximum bid reach $2,200.00. We also see two 1000 plus feedback buyers at $11,111.00 and $78,100.00. After that, we see several "Not a registered user" pushing the bidding over $500,000. This casts doubt on the winning bid being genuine.
After some more research, I found an article on Antique Week about this auction. It looks like the winning bid was a "joke bid" according to the winning bidder. He has no intention of paying the seller. As for the seller, he is storing it in a safe deposit box while he decides what to do next.
You have to feel sorry for the original seller. The bottle has been in his family for over 50 years before he decided to sell it. After all the publicity about the auctions, he has received many nasty emails calling him an idiot. The anonymity of the internet certainly allows people to be heartless. The bottle is clearly worth several thousand dollars. Whether it is worth $10,000, $100,000, $500,000 or more is anybody's guess.
https://www.newlifeauctions.com/allsopp.html
Here's a link to the article on Antique Week.
http://www.antiqueweek.com/ArchiveArticle.asp?newsid=550
I guess being American you are unaware of the history behind that bottle. Sir Edward Belcher was sent to look for Lord Franklin's expedition to search for the North West Passage, however he failed losing four of his five ships and being relieved of his command for his trouble. That bottle was only one of two left from that expedition.
Sir Edward Belcher, (born 1799, Halifax, Nova Scotia [now in Canada]—died March 18, 1877, London, Eng.), naval officer who performed many coastal surveys for the British Admiralty.
Born: 1799 Halifax Canada
Died: March 18, 1877 (aged 78) London England
The grandson of a governor of Nova Scotia, Belcher entered the navy in 1812. After serving as a surveyor with an expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Strait in 1825, he commanded a surveying ship along the north and west coasts of Africa (1830–33). He undertook a voyage to the west coasts of North and South America, the South Pacific, and China (1836–42) and a subsequent voyage to China, Borneo, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa (1843–46).
In 1852 Belcher was given command of an Arctic expedition to search for the explorer Sir John Franklin, who was lost in attempting to find the Northwest Passage. The hardships of the voyage seemed to tax Belcher beyond his abilities: he ordered four ice-bound ships abandoned in May 1854, apparently without justification. Relieved of further command, he described his Arctic venture in The Last of the Arctic Voyages (1855). He was created a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1867 and he became an admiral in 1872.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Belcher
