A giant demolition wrecking ball on which supermodel Naomi Campbell once perched in an iconic car safety campaign, a yellow miniature submarine, and a door that reputedly came from a one of the nation’s most imposing prisons that were found in two local eccentric shops are to go under the hammer.

They were just a few of the items from a collection of items that were used to ‘decorate’ the premises of TMB Vape Lab Ltd, a vaping products retailer that had stores in Sutton and Mansfield.

The firm ceased trading last month and liquidators handling the winding up of the business have now instructed auctioneers Eddisons to dispose of the contents of the two shops:  fixtures, fittings, vape stocks – and the hoard of treasures.

Eddisons director Paul Cooper said: “We were warned there was some unusual stuff heading our way but we were just amazed by what came out of the fleet of delivery vehicles that arrived at our auction centre in Scunthorpe.

“The miniature submarine was a particular highlight, of course, the first submarine we’ve ever had for auction. It’s a remotely-operated craft, developed by the French company ECA in the early 1970s for mine detection.  Royal Navy minehunters were equipped with these ‘Poisson Auto-Propulses’ (Self-Propelled Fish’) and they sold off a number of them when their working days were over – which is how one ended up in a vape shop.

“The demolition wrecking ball is the prop that was used in a famous Vauxhall ad back in the early 1990s. The carmaker wanted to highlight the fact that its new Corsa had side impact bars. What better way to get everyone’s attention than to have supermodel Naomi Campbell photographed riding a giant iron ball being swung at the little car?

“Despite its realistic appearance, the giant ball on which Naomi was perched is actually made of composite material rather than iron – but it is quite amusing to see one of the auction centre lads casually moving something that you would expect to weigh as much as five tons.

“The vintage prison door is reputed to have come from Leicester, one of the most impressive-looking jails in the country. It was opened in 1828 and built in a castle style, with 30-foot perimeter walls, the highest in the country. The prison has been enlarged and changed numerous times over the past two centuries and historically it was not unusual for items to be sold off or salvaged when such work was being done so it could well be from there.

“Other unlikely things that came out of the two vape shops include church windows, life-size model carol singers, items of fairground memorabilia, a Halloween skeleton, ancient stable doors, antique cash registers and even some of the lights that once illuminated sets in Carlton Television’s Nottingham studios  – not to mention a 1980 Honda motorcycle that arrived as a pile of bits on a pallet. I could go on.

“I gather the idea was to give the shops a quirky edge and – magically – the collection just kept on growing. A director of the company told one of my colleagues ‘We didn’t go looking for it – it came to us’.”

A total of 128 lots are going under the hammer in the online auction that ends at 1pm on Wednesday 26^th April. The full auction catalogue is available at www.eddisons.com.