Nelson victory poster for sale

A RARE poster celebrating Nelson's victory at Trafalgar will be up for auction in the Capital next week.

The rare broadsheet from 1805 will be auctioned by Edinburgh's Lyon & Turnbull on September 8.

It is one of only two known to exist and is valued at between 10,000 and 15,000.

Originally sold for a mere two pence, the poster proclaims Nelson's victory against the French and Spanish fleets and includes details of the names of all the ships and numbers of guns and men on both sides.

Simon Vickers, Lyon & Turnbull's book specialist, said: "Thousands of these posters would have been pinned up all over the country. The majority would have been ripped down or fell into disrepair over time."

A similar poster was sold for 38,400 in London in 2005.