A WOODEN curtain pole has sold at an auction for nearly £20,000 after the owner had no idea about its significance.

A man inherited the pole from his grandparents, who kept it in their sitting room for decades thinking it was an ordinary piece of furniture.

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But the 6ft-long pole was in fact a rare tribal staff from the Austral Islands in French Polynesia.

The theory is that it was brought to Britain by Scottish Presbyterian missionaries who ventured to the South Pacific in the mid-1800s

The staff or pole club is likely to have belonged to a tribal chieftain and used for ceremonies.

According to the auctioneer, the pommel end was carved using shark teeth with six stylised masks, each with two short “horns'” to the forehead.

The vendor had recently inherited it from his grandparents who had used it for decades to hang their curtains in the living room of their home in Frome, Somerset.

It was spotted by Mark Huddleston from Clevedon Salerooms of Bristol on a routine valuation enquiry.

Mark said: “The owner was completely unaware of its significance and could offer very little information about it, only that it had come from his grandparents’ house.

“He said it has been used as a curtain pole in their sitting room for decades.

“A little probing revealed that he had ancestors who were Scottish Presbyterian ministers who travelled to the South Pacific about 170 years ago.

“Only two staffs to my knowledge with similar carved terminals had come to auction before and both of those were sold in America.”

So scarce was the staff that the auction house garnered interest from bidders as far away as New Zealand.

It ultimately sold to a private collector from the east of England who had travelled across country to view the staff in person and then returned days later to bid on it.

It sold for a hammer price of £15,500 but with the fees added on the buyer paid £18,900 for it.

Mark added: “It is an excellent result. The vendor, who was on holiday in Porto when he heard the result, said he was going to celebrate with a glass of port.”

The shock sale comes after a woman sold a box of broken pots for an eye-popping £200,000.

Gill Stewart inherited the crockery from her grandfather, who collected them in China during the Boxer Rebellion between 1899-1901.

She assumed they were worthless due to damage and the auctioneers gave an estimate of £740-£1,350.

But they went under the hammer for a jaw-dropping £162,000 – or £196,992 including fees.

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