Yeti Track Photos Sold
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 27th, 2007
As a followup to my earlier blog about the auction of the Shipton-Ward Yeti footprint photographs, the final bids are in.
Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz blogs today of the outcome of auction.
“This 1951 photograph of a purported Yeti footprint was auctioned off at Christie’s London for £3,500. Eric Earle Shipton took the photograph in the Himalayas,” writes Pescovitz.
That amount equals US $7082.25.
It is unknown who purchased the set of Yeti photos (as there were four, not just the one famous photograph), at this time. It is worth noting, in typical British wording, they had been “THE PROPERTY OF A LADY,” which had been “a gift from Tom Bourdillon to Michael John Davies in the 1950s, and thence by descent to the present owner.”
Intriguingly, as Christie’s listed: “Please note this lot is sold without copyright.”
In other words, these were merely old photographic prints that probably are rather easily obtainable as copies.
Shipton, Michael Ward, and Sen Tensing found these tracks during the exploratory 1951 expedition in which the team worked out the now famous route over the Khumbu Glacier to assault Mount Everest.
Eric Shipton (August 1, 1907 – March 28, 1977).
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Loren Coleman no longer writes for Cryptomundo. His archived posts remain here at Cryptomundo.
The Shipton photos were the reason I became interested in what would eventually be known as cryptozoology.
The photos are interesting because they seem to reflect what one would expect from a bipedal ape (unlike sasquatch prints, which are in the image of a giant human).
As I understand it, Shipton erred in not photographing more prints which would have given us more information.
Also, it should be noted that the photo of the tracks leading away on the desolate mountain side, while often associated with the “snowman” tracks, are obviously too symmetrical and too close together to be yeti prints and are probably tracks of a split hoofed animal (mountain goat, sheep) filmed to show animal travel above the snowline.