A violin owned and played by the physicist Albert Einstein has bee sold at auction for British auction house Dominic Winter Auctioneers has sold a violin that was previously owned by Albert Einstein for a remarkable £860,000 (AU$1.765m), far above the company’s estimate of £300,000 (AU$615,000).

The sale price will have a commission of 26.4 percent added onto it.

The fall of the gavel was a “special moment,” Chris Albury, senior auctioneer at Dominic Winter, told the BBC. “We had three phone bidders heavily involved up until the very end.”

Albert Einstein’s “Lina” Violin. Photo courtesy Dominic Winter

The 1894 Anton Zunterer violin is etched with the word ‘Lina’ – the name Einstein gave all of his violins and a supposed play on the German ‘violine’. Einstein started to play the violin at the age of five, and played throughout his teenage and adult life; this instrument is believed to be the first one he purchased. He bought it in 1894 in Munich, before he set off to study in Switzerland.

In 1932, as he prepared to flee Germany for the United States to escape Nazi persecution, Einstein entrusted the violin to his friend and colleague Max von Laue. He also gifted von Laue his bicycle saddle and a copy of an 1843 philosophy book on Descartes and Spinoza, which had been passed down to him by his father. All three items were offered at the auction on 8 October.

Von Laue gave the items to Margarete Hommrich in 1952, and the items remained in her family for 70 years.