Gun used by MI5's first female agent handler sold

A wartime pistol once owned by the MI5 agent handler Mary Sherer has sold at auction for £1,600 - more than four times its estimate.

Sherer, thought to be the first female agent handler in the Security Service, was instrumental in the World War Two operation "Double Cross" which used a stable of double agents to supply the Nazis with false information ahead of D-Day.

One of the most challenging double agents she handled was a French woman codenamed Agent Treasure, who had threatened to end her bogus reports to the Germans a month before D-Day - before she changed her mind.

Discovered at a valuation day in Gloucestershire, the Mauser C96 was only estimated to fetch between £300 and £500.

The Double Cross operation was a highly secretive mission designed to turn German agents into double agents, in order to feed misleading information back to German intelligence.

Sherer played a key role in the elaborate plot to convince Hitler that the Allies were about to stage the bulk of the D-Day landings in Calais rather than on the Normandy coast.

She recruited double agent Lily Sergeyev, whose codename was Treasure.

But, according to the auctioneers, the relationship was not without its difficulties.

At one point the "exceptionally temperamental and troublesome" Sergeyev threatened to scupper a covert operation after her beloved dog had to be left behind in Gibraltar because of British quarantine rules.

Despite her contribution, Sherer was reportedly never given officer rank alongside her male counterparts.

The German-made C96 Mauser, famously nicknamed the 'Broom Handle' because of its distinctive wooden grip, is one of the first and most recognisable semi-automatic handguns ever made.

It was selected as the basis for Han Solo's iconic blaster used by Harrison Ford in Star Wars.

Stuart Maule, auctioneer and gun specialist at The Stroud Auction Saleroom in Stonehouse, said it was a rare find.

"Someone [like Sherer] that was so critical in the ending of World War Two, that worked for MI5 - it's just a truly unique piece," he said.

"The gun enthusiasts - if I'm honest - are not going to be overly interested in it because it's a deactivated gun so it really is the people bidding based on the story behind it. Those are the people - and there's a lot of interest in military history."

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