SEVEN paintings by notorious East End gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray when they were in prison on the Isle of Wight sold at auction today for more than £3,000.

The paintings were expected to fetch between £200 and £300 but each beat those prices when they went under the hammer in Lincoln.

The paintings by the Kray brothers - four by Reggie and three by Ronnie - included depictions of themselves.

One, showing three men escaping from an island prison on a boat, sold for £675, a auction house spokeswoman said. Two others by Reggie Kray each sold for £500.

The seven paintings sold for a total of £3,335 on the third day of a massive four-day antique auction to celebrate the merger of Golding Young of Grantham and Thomas Mawer and Son.

The paintings, created when the brothers were at Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight, was originally traded for tobacco by another prisoner and later given to the current owner.

Dated September 21, 1973, it has the HM Prison Parkhurst stamp on the back.

Auctioneer John Leatt previously said although not of ''great artistic merit'', the paintings would be popular with collectors of Kray and gangster memorabilia.

Today's success would have come as little surprise - in August 2006, over £9,000 was paid for just 12 lots of Kray memorabilia at Thomas Mawer and Son.

The highest price was £2,200 for a painting created for Marc Bolan of T-Rex while the Krays were in Parkhurst.

That sale followed a previous auction of Kray paintings held in October 2005 at Thomas Mawer and Son which also raised £9,000.