Inflation is the sign of the times even when it comes to rare World War I memorabilia.
Last sold more than 25 years ago for $178,500, a Victoria Cross awarded posthumously to Private Robert Beatham was clinched on Friday for a cool $495,000 in Sydney.
Under intense machine gun fire in the final months of World War I, Pte Beatham made a decision that would save the lives of his mates and cost him his own.
The 24-year-old and fellow soldier Lance Corporal Nottingham successfully attacked four enemy machine guns, killing and capturing their crews at the Battle of Amiens in France in 1918.
Pte Beatham was then himself gunned down, never to see the Allies advance or the rare Victoria Cross awarded to him.
His mother, who lost three other sons in the war, accepted it in 1919 from King George V at Buckingham Palace.
Friday's auction was held by Noble Numismatics at NSW's State Library in Sydney with in-person and live online bidding.
But the lucky winner will have to shell out more than the final hammer price.
A buyer's fee of 22 per cent is added on top of the purchase price, making the total about $600,000.
Still, it falls short of the $1.46 million hammer price for a Victoria Cross awarded after Corporal John "Jack" French destroyed three Japanese machine gun posts during World War II.
Pte Beatham's medal was among almost 5000 lots being auctioned, including an SS Titanic Rescue Operational medal, coins from ancient Rome, paintings and other treasures.
Among the other items that sold were a set of six silver coins from New Zealand dating back to 1935 and commemorating the Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840 between the Indigenous Maori people and King George V.
The coins garnered $11,500.
Pte Beatham worked as a labourer in Geelong in Victoria when he enlisted as a teenager, and served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
Already wounded when he made his fatal charge on the second day of the Battle of Amiens, he and his colleague used bombs and bayonets to kill 10 German soldiers and capture 10 others.
A total of six Beatham brothers and their fathers served in the war, with four killed and one held as a prisoner of war.
Pte Beatham is buried at Harbonnieres, France.
