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
