Tatty outfit worn by Compo in Last of the Summer Wine sells for £6,000

A tatty outfit worn by Compo in Last of the Summer Wine has sold for £6,000 at auction.

The iconic telly costume fetched double the estimated asking price.

Actor Bill Owen wore it in the BBC sitcom.

It is made up of a brown woollen jacket with tears and patches all over it.

There is a matching waistcoat with massive holes in it and a stained shirt.

The look is completed with a pair of trousers with a piece of rope for a belt and a green hat.

The Beeb production team had to “painstakingly” make it look “distressed” and “weathered.”

It was one of the last costumes Bill – who died in 1999 aged 85 – wore on set.

He played the role of the character – real name William Simmonite – for over a quarter of a century from 1974 until his death.

It was sold by the late actor’s family and the estimate was as low as £3,000.

It went under the hammer with East Bristol Auctions.

The listing reads: “A complete screen-used Compo costume, as worn by Bill Owen as the iconic character in the classic BBC sitcom.

“Comprising a custom-made deliberately distressed woollen jacket with a label for Bryan Manning of Savile Row, an equally distressed knitted waistcoat.

“Pyjama-type shirt, distressed suit trousers complete with rope belt, and the trademark iconic green knitted woollen hat.

“The trousers with original ‘Stagewear Unlimited of Yorkshire’ customers’ label, which has ‘Bill’ written in ink alongside.

“Believed to have been worn by Owen in the series around the mid-to-late 1990s and is one of his ‘final’ costumes for the character.”

It added: “There were several versions of Compo’s costume over the show’s run.

“And each time the costume wore out the production team would have to carefully source another.

“The jackets ended up being purchased from a Savile Row tailor and were painstakingly ‘weathered’ by the production team in order to maintain continuity.

A note within Owen’s autobiography alludes to the eventual cost of his tailor-made ‘scruffy’ costume being in the region of two-thousand pounds once completed.

“With trademark green hat, rope belt and distressed appearance, this screen-used costume represents one of the most iconic and endearing outfit’s in British comedy history.

“Supplied with a photograph of Owen as the character, wearing this costume.”

The online auction ended on Friday (8 Dec).

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