By George Martin For Mailonline
Published: 14:41 GMT, 20 February 2019 | Updated: 15:14 GMT, 20 February 2019
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A bargain hunter who bought an old photo album at a car boot sale for 50p is celebrating today after to sold for £4,000.
The enthusiastic car booter, who has not been named, had no idea what he had bought until he took it to an auction house on the off-chance.
Experts found the album contained 20 rare black and white photos depicting the Happy Valley Racecourse fire in 1918.
The disaster in Hong Kong resulted in the deaths of more than 600 people.
The album contains 20 photos depicting the Happy Valley derby fire in 1918, one of the worst disasters in Hong Kong's history
The deadly fire resulted in the deaths of more than 600 people who were on a day out at the races
The owner was stunned when expert Lazarus Halstead of Chiswick Auctions, west London, gave the item an estimate of £400.
But after fierce bidding the album sold for ten times the estimate to a collector based in Hong Kong.
The tragedy is seen as an important part of Hong Kong and China's history and not many photos exist of it.
The Happy Valley Racecourse was built on swampland in 1845 to provide horse racing for British people in Hong Kong, and then became more and more popular with Chinese residents.
The derby race was held annually every February. On February 26, 1918, a temporary grandstand
