Last original Dalek prop goes up for sale

Saturday, December 05, 2009

The last original Dalek from the original series of Doctor Who is to go on sale in February 2010.

The prop is one of the original four Daleks made for Doctor Who’s second story, now known as The Daleks, way back in 1963.

However, BBC budgets being what they are, the prop was continually repaired and redressed for series after series, until today only the bottom section dates back to 1963.

That said, this is a unique piece of Doctor Who history and should fetch a fair amount at auction. On sale at the same time are a number of Sea Devils and Cybermen – the items are being sold because of the combined cost of restoring and maintaining them.

The sale will be managed by Bonhams, a company which recently sold another original Dalek for £38,000.

(This story has been covered in the Daily Telegraph, which unfortunately managed to get some basic facts wrong – such as quoting the model builders as ‘Surecraft Models’ rather than ‘Shawcraft Models’.)

If you are interested in the history of the Dalek props, there’s no better place to go than Dalek6386, which covers their design, construction, redressing and use in detail episode to episode in impressive detail.