An Austin Reed suit owned and worn by Sir Winston Churchill has sold for £7,440 at SAS Auctions in Newbury, United Kingdom, against an estimate of £4,000 - £6,000.
The lot was the star item in a single collection of 3,000 pieces of Churchill memorabilia that raised £11,160 in total. The unsold lots, mainly ceramics, will be auctioned again later this year.
The grey pin striped suit included a label on the inside pocket that reads ‘16/9/53 RT Hon Sir Winston S Churchill KCG”, so the suit would have been worn by Churchill during his time as Prime Minister.
The suit was sold with a letter of provenance from Austin Reed stating that the labels in the suit were correct. A second two-page letter tells that the suit was gifted by Sir Winston’s wife Clementine to a Mary Williams.
Sir Winston Churchill memorabilia continues to sell well at auction with a discarded cigar butt selling for £4,000 in May 2021.
The 7cm long butt, which had been picked up by a Policeman escorting Churchill, had been estimated to sell for just £800.
In March 2021 Bellman's Auctioneers sold a pair of Churchill's slippers embroidered with Churchill's WSC initials in gold thread.
With an estimate of £10,000 - £15,000 the slippers sold for £39,040.
That sale also saw a 21cm brandy glass owned by Churchill sell for £18,000 against an estimate of £7,000.
And one of our favourites; a set of Churchill's gold plated dentures, from the collection of his personal dentist, Wallace Stewart Ross, sold for £19,200 at Bonhams.
The visual pieces of Churchill memorabilia sell best with prices driven by some high profile fans including Boris Johnson, whose cabinet office colleagues presented him with six volumes of first edition Winston Churchill books valued at £800, following his resignation as Prime Minister.