An old biscuit tin a disgruntled artist hid a series of saucy pictures on in revenge for getting the sack has been discovered at a car boot sale. The image on the lid for Huntley and Palmer's Ginger Nuts depicts a traditional English garden party scene in Edwardian times.
But a closer inspection reveals lewd images that were drawn into the background by the cheeky illustrator. One of the hidden pictures is of a couple having sex in the herbaceous border, with the man's bare bottom on show.
Next to the group of women and children drinking Earl Grey tea and eating cake is one small dog mounting another in the bushes. And on the jam jar on the table the artist wrote the word 's..t' on the label.
The saucy extras are believed to have been the work of freelance illustrator Mick Hill who did it out of devilment in 1980. They were only noticed by Huntley and Palmer after the tins had been produced and distributed for sale.
The eight-inch tins were quickly withdrawn from sale and recalled but only after a few hundred of them had been sold. The one that has now emerged was recently snapped up at a car boot sale for just £1.
The woman who bought it was drawn to the art but blissfully unaware of its unsavory additions or of the tin's real value. Others have been known to sell for several hundreds of pounds because of the artists' novel handiwork. It is being sold at Rowley's Fine Art Auctioneers of Ely, Cambridgeshire.
James Fuller, of Rowley's, said: "The seller bought it at a car boot sale for £1 - they brought it to us and said, 'how much can you get for it?' They had no idea of the illustrations - they're quite hard to find unless you know where to look.
"These tins can go for two or three hundred pounds.. It's the pure novelty value that people like. Its amazing to think that the artist managed to get away with it."
The tin is being sold on Saturday with a pre-sale estimate of £50.
