Mammoth profit awaits woman who bought 14,000 year-old woolly tusk at boot sale

Carol Cavanagh paid £650 for the three-foot long fossil, which weighs 15kgs.

She has since had it valued and been told it could be worth more than twice that.

Ms Cavanagh, 47, said: “I was first drawn to it because it was big and heavy and I thought it was unusual.

“At first glance I thought it was a lump of wood but on closer inspection I realised it was a tusk of some sort.

“I wasn’t 100% sure if it was a mammoth tusk or not but I just took a gamble.”

She added: “It was the first ever time I had seen one.

“It was more than three feet long and weighed a whopping 33lbs.

“It was the texture and the its weight that drew me to it.”

The seller told Ms Cavanagh it was part of a woolly mammoth tusk he had found on the beach a number of years ago in East Yorkshire.

She added: “I think he had found it in the mud as the cliffs were deteriorating and falling into the sea.”

It had a £800 price tag on it, but Carol knocked him down to £650.

Ms Cavanagh, who runs a shop in Skirlaugh, near Hull, now plans to sell it at a specialist auction.