6th December, 2016 by Amy Hopkins

Two bottles of Welsh whisky that date back more than 100 years have smashed their pre-sale estimates, collectively fetching £14,500 (US$18,500) at auction.

The Welsh Whisky Distillery Company bottles, thought to date back to about 1900, were sold online by Peter Francis Auctioneers in Carmarthen yesterday.

Both were expected to fetch up to £3,000, but were sold for £7,300 and £7,200 to private collectors, reports the BBC.

The vendor’s father, who was a partner at a wine merchant in Fishguard, saw an advert detailing the bottles and purchased them for £5 each in the 1960s.

A family had previously acquired the bottles from the Welsh Whisky Distillery Company when the site closed in 1914.

The distillery was established in Frongoch, Bala, Gwynedd, in 1889. After the company’s liquidation in 1910, the site became a World War One prison camp and then an internment camp after the Easter Rising in the Republic of Ireland.

“There is an example of these bottles at St Fagans Museum and one at Penderyn Distillery,” auctioneer Charles Hampshire said ahead of the sale. “They are extremely rare and I wouldn’t be surprised if I never saw another one.”