One careless owner...

Charlie Chaplin's suit sold for £3,5000

The first tramp suit won by Charlie Chaplin has been sold at auction for £3,500.

The screen comic borrowed the suit from fellow actor Billie Ritchie for  the 1914 short Kid Auto Races, the first in which he appeared as the now-iconic tramp.

Until recently, the suit, bought by collector William Forbes-Hamiltonfor £4,500 about 20 years ago, had been on display in Exeter, Devon.

Buyer John Cabello, 46, said he planned to put the suit on display in his shop in Plymouth – alongside with one of Hermann Goering’s Nazi uniforms. He said he was no Chaplin fan, but thought the outfit might drum up trade.

A bamboo cane, signed by Chaplin in 1952, was also among the lots on sale at Plymouth Auction Rooms. It fetched £2,185 from a telephone bidder from Texas.

That could prove to be a bargain:  a cane Chaplin swung in the film Modern Times fetched £47,800 at auction last year.

Both the suit and the cane had guide prices of £1,000-£2,000 ahead of today’s auction.

 

Published: 18 May 2005

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