Just like that! - Tommy Cooper fezzes fetch double expected price at auction

For Tim Dixon knew he’d had TWO of the same hats sitting in a box at his home for almost 70 years!

Now Tim’s prized possessions have gone under the hammer too, at the sale room of the Louth-based John Taylors auctioneers.

The two hats owned by the comedy legend were eventually sold at auction for twice their estimated value.

The fezzes were expected to sell for up to £400 at John Taylor's Auction Rooms in Louth on Tuesday, April 18, but sold for £860 to a private collector from Yorkshire bidding on the Internet. The auction room battle saw him outbid Lincolnshire actor John Hewer who does a Tommy Cooper tribute show scheduled to appear in Skegness later this year.

Tim was very pleased about the interest they had caused and very pleased that they were going to a private collector who was going to treasure them.

Tim had been certain that his were even better than the one that sold in Bedfordshire a few weeks ago.

For whereas that was owned by a Tommy Cooper impersonator who got it from the comedian’s widow after his death in 1984, Tim got his directly from Cooper himself – and straight off his head in one case!

It happened in 1955 when Cooper, renowned for wearing red fezzes and his catchphrase of ‘just like that’, was only a few years into a career that would turn him into an international star.

He appeared at the annual children’s Christmas party in the canteen of the Peter Dixon paper mill in Grimsby, one of the biggest employers in Lincolnshire.

The managing director of the company was Anthony Dixon, Tim’s father, and at the end of the show, he introduced his five-year-old son to the comedian and magician.

Tim, who is now a retired haulage contractor in his 70s, recalled: “Like everyone else, I was fascinated by the fez and I just asked him straight out if I could have it.

"He took it off his head and handed it to me, at which point I saw that it was a bit sweaty after the performance and I pulled a bit of a face.

"So Tommy walked over to his props piled up at the side of the room, took out a nice, clean fez and gave me that too!”

Tim came across the hats again during a recent clearout at his home in Louth and decided that the time had come to let them go to a collector.

Auctioneer James Laverack, of James Taylors, said: “They’re two wonderful pieces of memorabilia from quite an early stage in Tommy Cooper’s career.

"He went into showbiz in 1947 after leaving the Army and, in the early 1950s, he was working mainly in variety theatres and the London nightspots, sometimes at the bottom at the bottom of the bill and, in some places, doing spots between the strippers!

"The television shows that would make him one of the most famous comics of the 20th century were still some years ahead.

"The idea of him travelling up to Grimsby to do a children’s Christmas party in the canteen of a paper mill sounds just surreal. But it happened!

"I gather, by the way, that he was very funny that afternoon. Went down a storm with the children.”

James, who gave his own Tommy Cooper impression at the conclusion of the sale, added: "The provenance of the two fezzes is rock-solid. Indeed, given that one of them was actually taken off Tommy’s sweating head after the performance, any doubters need only get the lot DNA-tested!”

Given the story attached to the fezzes, it was considered a shame to split them up, so they were auctioned as a single lot.

Asked how much they are expected to make, James said: “Tommy Cooper obviously had quite a few fezzes during his career and they do turn up, with varying strengths of provenance, from time to time.