Dalek sells for £20,000 at Doctor Who prop auction

Dalek sells for £20,000 at Doctor Who prop auction
Dalek sells for £20,000 at Doctor Who prop auction (Image credit: AP/Press Association Images)

A battered 25-year-old Dalek figure with missing parts has fetched more than £20,000 at auction. The black and gold Imperial Mk 1 Dalek, which originally featured in 1985 story Revelation Of The Daleks, drew the highest price at the sale of Doctor Who props at Bonhams. Kylie Minogue's waitress outfit and knee-length boots, when she played Astrid Peth in the Voyage Of The Damned Christmas special in 2007, drew £3,120. Tenth Doctor David Tennant's Paul Smith dinner suit from the same programme fetched £5,040. Actress Billie Piper's multi-coloured polka dot pyjamas and dressing gown from her role as Rose Tyler in 2006 story Army Of Ghosts went for £600. A further white Dalek went for £15,600, with both going for more than double the estimated £7,000. Also fetching hefty prices were a number of Cyberman costumes, which were sold for up to £9,600 each. The items were part of a London sale of more than 160 items from the hit series - both its modern reincarnation and from series dating back to the 1980s and 1970s. Many of the lots were created from odds and ends, as well as moulded latex and fibreglass. Another big-money seller was a specially adapted Range Rover used in the spin-off Torchwood series, which sold for £18,000 and still bears the logo of the shadowy organisation. The highest priced Imperial Dalek had a replacement 'plunger' arm and eyeball and was missing five shoulder slats and its wheel base, but it did not deter the buyer who paid £20,400.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.