Queen Elizabeth II's military driver's licence has sold at auction for more than $12,000.
The slip of cardboard was kept by the Queen's wartime driving instructor, Major Violet Wellesley MBE, with instructions that it was only to be sold after the monarch's death.
It sold for 6,800 pounds ($12,017) in a lot of other royal memorabilia offered by UK auctioneers Reeman Dansie on Wednesday, well above the estimated price of 2,000 pounds.
The military provisional driving licence, dated March 1, 1945, was given to the future Queen during her time as a mechanic in the final year of World War II.
It lists her name as "H.R.H Princess Elizabeth", her height as 5ft 4 inches (162cm), her hair as light brown and her eye colour as blue.
The royal family's official website says the monarch was not required to hold a normal driver's licence — " a privilege held by her alone" — making this the only one she ever owned. She was also exempt from needing a passport.
Violet Wellesley was a dispatch rider and driving instructor in the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) during World War II, and was appointed by King George VI as the then-Princess Elizabeth's personal driving instructor when she enlisted in 1945.
After Major Wellesley's death in 1971 she passed her collection on to a companion, according to Reeman Dansie.
The auction house's managing director James Grinter told the BBC the archive was "very special".
Included with the licence were several photos, news clippings about the Queen's military service, and a letter written by Major Wellesley to a royal biographer.
"The impression she [Princess Elizabeth] left with us all — and I know I'm speaking for everyone in that unit — was one of real understanding and very happy comradeship," she wrote.
"In spite of the fact that our Army life was so completely new to someone in her position, and extremely tiring, she never once gave in.
"She insisted on being treated as an ordinary ATS subaltern, and on receiving no favours whatsoever.
"Time and time again people have asked me, 'Is the Princess really working under cars — changing wheels and so on — and getting dirty like the rest of you?'
"Well, let me say at once that she not only crawled under cars but got thoroughly dirty!"
Also on sale at the auction were plaster casts of Winston Churchill's and Princess Diana's hands.
