Slice from Princess Diana’s wedding cake sells for four figures at auction

A slice of the official cake from Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ 1981 wedding has sold at auction for $1,375.

The slice, which has been preserved in wax paper and came in a silver presentation box (and, hopefully, has been sitting in a very clean refrigerator for the last 33 years), was sold in an online auction by Nate D. Silvers Auctions of Los Angeles.

The winning bidder also got a card that read “With best wishes from Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales.”

Not bad, as far as royal mementos go. Though Sam Heller, a spokesman for the auction house, also reminded the buyer that the cake is no longer edible.

Despite whatever magical powers he might’ve thought the wax paper possessed.

Here’s a picture of the cake, alongside its fancy cake box:

 

 

Photo credit: Associated Press

 

With all due respect to all parties involved–and especially to the memory of the Princess (the anniversary of whose death is tomorrow)–that does not look like a good piece of cake.

In fact, it hardly looks like a cake at all. If you didn’t know that that’s what it was before you saw the picture, you could’ve been convinced it was any number of other things. A moldy stack of postcards, perhaps; a folded old letter from the Civil War.

But, apparently, royal cake collecting is a thing. Heller went on to note that there’s a cadre of auction hunters devoted to the stuff. Some have bought cake that dates as far back as the 1840 marriage of Queen Victoria.

It’s also worth noting that this slice comes from the #1, actual, official cake. Not to be confused with any of the 26 other wedding cakes available to the 3,500 guests at Diana and Charles’ wedding.