Bidding Underway For Shipton’s Yeti Footprint Photographs

They’re icons of the cryptid world and now they can be yours. From August 28 until September 10, Chrisie's Auctions and Private Sales will be accepting bids on four of the photographs taken by British explorer Eric Earle Shipton in the Himalayas in 1951 of what many believe are footprints of a Yeti.

Shipton discovered the footprints on November 8, 1951, at about 19,000 feet while on his fifth expedition on Mount Everest. He estimated the single Yeti footprint to be 12 inches long by five inches wide and took photographs of the footprint next to a ice axe and a man’s bootprint for perspective. There was also a set of tracks that went for a mile and showed the creature had an 18 inch gait and walked on two legs.

James Hyslop, who cataloged them for Christie's online auction, describes the importance of the photographs.

They are incredibly rare. The photographs are the earliest documentation of the famous Yeti and the pictures made all of the headlines in the 1950s. They are on a par with the footage which showed Bigfoot in America. But these pictures were the first real evidence that the Yeti could be real. There had been myths that people had seen the Yeti before the 1951 sighting, but this is the first picture showing photograph evidence of the Yeti. Others before have just speculated.

The auction package consists of four of Shipton’s 12-by-13-inch photographs. Two show the Yeti footprints alongside human footprints and the two showing the footprint next to the ice axe and boot print. They are probably the most intensely studied photographs of evidence of a Yeti in existence.

The set of four pictures is expected to sell for at least $8,3000 (£5,000) and bidding is already underway. If you want to own a piece of cryptid history, get your bid in soon!