A time-worn 40-year-old Dodge van has sold on eBay for £15,612 – on the strength of the fact that it had been scrawled on by former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

The van was one of the first tour vans used by Cobain and the band The Melvins, for whom he worked as a roadie, and among the graffiti added by Cobain was what the website Seattlepi.com called a remarkably detailed sketch of the members of the rock band Kiss.

An original attempt by the previous owner to sell the van earlier this year was pulled after the listing violated some of eBay's terms.

The second successful attempt described the van as "a one of a kind piece of grunge rock history", and while it is a runner, the seller said it would need new tyres and brakes to make it roadworthy.

But perhaps the most uncanny fact about the van is that its road licence expired in the same month as Cobain's death, in April 1994.