£4m stash of UK's 'largest hoarder' to go on sale

An Aladdin's cave of weird and wonderful collectibles belonging to Britain's "biggest ever hoarder" is to sell for up to four million pounds after it was discovered following his death, an auction house said Thursday.

The trove of 60,000 items took up the man's terraced house, a rented flat, two garages and 24 rubbish bins. 

It includes rare comics, books, Beatles memorabilia, football collectibles and photo negatives from the Apollo space missions.

The man was identified in press reports as Ramann Shukla, who lived in Nottingham, central England before his sudden death earlier this year aged 64.

The trove, which crammed every room of Shukla's properties from floor to ceiling, was discovered by his brother. 

"His first impression was to put them in landfill. But thankfully he decided to call us in," chief auctioneer Terry Woodcock of Unique Auctions in Lincoln said in a video on the company's website.

He said eight staff from the auction house took 12 days to empty the main house, and there was still more to be removed from the other properties.

Shukla had been amassing items via eBay since at least 2008, Woodcock said. 

"It was clear that this man was a total compulsive buyer," he said.

Shukla was reportedly a computer programmer, and had to live in a bed and breakfast property during his last year for lack of space.

The eclectic trove includes signed photos and letters relating to John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and Elvis Presley, more than 6,000 vintage comics, 3,000 chemistry sets and 12 Rickenbacker guitars.

The entire collection is valued between £500,000 ($645,000) and £4 million ($5.2 million), and will be auctioned off from October 22 to 25 in no fewer than 3,000 lots.

jwp-jit/phz/tgb