Lovely bubbly! Only Fools And Horses 'Peckham Spring Water' prop bought at auction for seven times as much as sellers expected - after being stashed by crew member for 33 years
An empty 'Peckham Spring Water' cardboard box that was used as a prop in a classic episode of Only Fools And Horses has sold for seven times more than estimated.
The box has the famous line printed on both sides from when it featured in the 1992 Christmas special Mother Nature's Son, which was watched by 20million fans.
There were more than 2,000 people monitoring the sale as the price soared until the hammer went down at £2,200.
With auctioneers' fees included, the undisclosed buyer paid £2,728 for the box - almost seven times the initial £400 suggested value.
In the famous episode, Sir David Jason's Del Boy 'finds' a mysterious water source at Grandad's old allotment which is in fact tap water from a hose laid under some rocks.
He convinces the authorities to give him a licence to bottle the 'Peckham Spring' from his kitchen tap and sell it as mineral water, with sales boosted by a drought caused by the amount being used to make up the bottles.
The cardboard box prop was one of dozens stored in Del's Nelson Mandela House flat where the illicit enterprise took place.
It was salvaged after filming by a member of the production crew who kept hold of it for 33 years as a memento.
In the famous epsiode, Del 'discovers' a mysterious water source at Grandad's old allotment which is in fact tap water from a hose he had laid under some rocks
The box has the famous line printed on both sides from when it featured in the 1992 Christmas special Mother Nature's Son, which was watched by 20million fans
She tucked it away in the back of a cupboard of her Gloucestershire home where it had gathered dust for decades.
The box, which is totally empty and measures 13in by 8in by 13in, sparked a worldwide bidding war at Harper Field Auctions, of Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.
Stuart Maule, auctioneer at Harper Field, said after the sale: 'There were 2,028 registered online bidders monitoring the sale from all over the world, including Australia, the US and Barbados, which demonstrates the level of interest.
'It is a timeless show and we are thrilled with the result for what could be said to be one of the most famous cardboard boxes out there.'
He added: 'There was a live audience for the filming of the episode and afterwards bottles of water were handed out to them.
'But at the time they had no idea the cardboard box would be valuable one day so it was left behind.
'The vendor, who was a member of the production crew, decided to keep the box as a memento of the show.
'It features prominently in the episode where they think they have come across a new water spring.
The box, which is totally empty and measures 13in by 8in by 13in, sparked a worldwide bidding war at Harper Field Auctions, of Stonehouse, Gloucestershire
Last year, a bottle of Peckham's finest spring water was also sold for £4,000 in Bristol
Millions of people tuned in to watch the Christmas 1992 episode that featured the bottle
The Trotters' water brand turns out to be quite a success - being trialled out by a major supermarket and supporting people throughout a local drought
But in the final scene, as the family sleeps, the BBC reports that Peckham is without water
'They are going to start bottling the water and make a fortune, but it turns out it was from a hosepipe.
'The vendor had the box tucked away in the back of a cupboard for many years and felt like it was the right time to pass it on to someone who will really appreciate it.'
Last year, a bottle of Peckham's finest spring water was also sold for a whopping £4,000 in Bristol.
Around 150 were made for the show and they have made a splash in auction houses across the country.
Another bottle was sold for £5,720 in Surrey in 2022 and a third put up for a staggering £14,995.
Other famous items from the show have also been sold for thousands of pounds, such as Del Boy's signature cloth cap, which went under the hammer for £5,000 in May 2024.
Only Fools and Horses featured classic characters including Rodney, Uncle Albert, Boycie and Trigger, with the 1996 episode 'Time on Our Hands' attracting a record 24.3million viewers.
Last week, one of the show's stars Diane Langton died aged 77. She famously played Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter's love interest June Snell in two episodes of iconic BBC sitcom in 1985 and 1986.
