A postcard believed to have been sent by Jack the Ripper warning police of two murders has been sold at auction for 22,000 pounds, or $NZ43,000.
The BBC reports the card is dated 29 October 1888, which was 11 days before Mary Kelly - believed to be Jack the Ripper's final victim - was murdered on November 9.
The card sent to Ealing police station states: "Beware there is two women I want here and I mean to have them my knife is still in good order it is a students' knife and I hope you liked the kidney.
"I am Jack the Ripper."
Grand Auctions in Folkestone, Kent, said the kidney mentioned also appears in the "Letter from Hell", another Ripper letter, where the writer stated he had fried one of his victim's kidneys and "it tasted nice".
The card once belonged to a Metropolitan Police constable who was given it as a memento when he retired from the force in 1966. It was sold by his widow.
Jonathan Riley of Grand Auctions said a British private collector won a bidding war with an American for the rare letter, "the likes of which have never come up for sale before".
The final price will be closer to 30,000 pounds ($NZ58,000) once an auction premium is paid, Mr Riley said.
The BBC says Jack the Ripper's murders remain the most notorious unsolved mystery in British criminal history.
Between August and November 1888 he murdered five women in the Whitechapel area of east London.
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