A pair of medals presented to Surgeon AF Mackay, doctor to Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, achieved £48,000 ($77,237) at the second half of Bonhams' sale of the AL Lloyd collection in London.
In doing so the medals beat their £3,000-5,000 ($4,807-8,012) estimate by 864%.
The two medals, which sold as a single lot at the October 16 auction, comprised a Queen's South Africa 1899-1902 and an Antarctica 1907-1909. Mackay was the surgeon on Shackleton's 1907-1909 Nimrod expedition to the South Pole.
 The medals acheived an impressive 864% increase on their pre-auction estimate |
Upon arriving in Antarctica, Shackleton sent Mackay, TWE David and D Mawson to the south magnetic pole - 650 km to the north west.
The journey took 10 days, with David becoming delusional, leading Mackay to exert his authority as doctor and threaten to declare him insane unless he transferred leadership of the expedition over to Mawson.
The party claimed the territory for England before beginning the gruelling walk back to the coast, arriving just 24 hours before the Nimrod arrived to collect them.
Mackay's luck was to run out on a later expedition to the western Parry Archipelago in Canada - he died of exposure after his ship holed and sank in pack ice.
A CMG group of four medals belonging to Dr Wordsworth Poole, principal medical officer in central Africa during the late 19th century, and physician to the British legation during the siege of Peking, sold for £36,000 ($57,909).
The medals include a Most Distinguished Order of St Michael & St George.
We have this collection of historical artefacts from the battle of Trafalgar for sale, including a small piece of Lord Nelson's handkerchief.
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