It’s hard to imagine that Mr Blobby is worth three times as much as John Lennon. In 2011, the Beatle’s tooth fetched £19,000 at auction, while on 26 January this year, someone on eBay agreed to pay £62,101 for an original – but crucially never used – 90s BBC costume of the pink and yellow Noel’s House Party star. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that the buyer ended up backing out, and tens of thousands of pounds weren’t spent on a bulbous belly, wobbly eyes and that trademark polka dot bow tie.
Then again, perhaps it is. Little known to most of us, there is a ferocious, often highly secretive trade in British TV props. In 2019, for example, a painting from the 80s sitcom ’Allo ’Allo! sold for £18,000 – The Fallen Madonna With the Big Boobies is officially worth just a grand less than a molar pulled from Lennon’s head. It’s not quite the £2m that an original R2-D2 can go for at auction – or the £3.5m someone once paid for a Batmobile – but it’s still big money.
Scott has two Blobbies, and he would rather you didn’t know his surname nor where he lives. Twenty-odd years ago, the 54-year-old hearse and limousine dealer bought an original Mr Blobby costume because he wanted to cheer up his dad.
“My dad was disabled for 16 years with a brain tumour and my wife and I bought a couple of bits to make him laugh,” Scott says. One of those bits was Blobby. “We put it next to him and he laughed and said we were mental.”
Scott bought Blobby from a collector and, from that moment on, became a collector himself. He now owns Del Boy’s green Ford Capri and the even more famous yellow three-wheeler from Only Fools and Horses, as well as the original Phantom Flan Flinger costume from 70s children’s show Tiswas. While Scott remains coy about some of his possessions, he’s happy to share that he has Mr Bean’s suit and shoes, plus “Anita Dobson’s outfit from EastEnders when dirty Den divorced her, watched by 30 million people”.
The first Blobby that Scott bought stands in his hallway ready to great guests with its unblinking lash-lined eyes. His second Blobby – bought years later from a BBC employee – is kept in storage.
“It’s best of British, really,” says Scott of his collection – he also owns props from reality competition Britain’s Got Talent. Scott is seeking funding for his own museum, but in the meantime says: “We’re probably going to take the collection out on the road and speak about it to Women’s Institutes and Lions clubs.”
Decades ago when he started collecting, Scott had to hunt far and wide for memorabilia and had “door after door after door” slammed in his face. Today, he has built a reputation and many sellers come directly to him. That’s not the only thing that’s changed. “Many, many years ago, people were throwing things in the skip. They couldn’t give it away,” Scott says, adding: “Years ago, stuff was cheap, but now the internet has made everything valuable.”
In 2021, a single square of carpet from Del Boy’s flat sold for £700. One lonely plastic wall panel from a 2013 episode of Doctor Who fetched £350, while people have bought the original faces (just the faces) of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends after they were listed online for £1,250 each. A piece of wallpaper from the BBC series Sherlock is available for £294.99.
It’s hard to overstate just how obscure certain lots are. At present, Wales-based artefact collectors the Prop Gallery are selling a 1in sticker from Thomas and Friends for £225; a production-used miniature of Pingu’s best mate, Robby the Seal, for £3,495; plus a bottle of Peckham Spring tap water from Only Fools and Horses for £14,995.
Who, beyond Scott, parts with their pounds and pays these prices? It’s not always easy to find out. The millionaire owner of an original puppet from a beloved 1950s children’s TV series replied: “Please don’t email me” when asked if he’d like to chat.
“When a lot of money changes hands, people tend to like remaining anonymous,” says Andrew Stowe, associate director at East Bristol Auctions, which has sold props from The Two Ronnies, Fawlty Towers, ’Allo ’Allo!, and Wallace and Gromit (unrelatedly, the auctioneers also once sold Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles). While some buyers like to flaunt their purchases, Stowe says many prefer privacy – revealing the location of an expensive item could affect a buyer’s insurance premiums or be an invitation to burglars.
Stowe helped sell ’Allo ’Allo!’s Fallen Madonna after a couple who bought it at a school charity auction in the 90s decided it was time to let it go. “It sold to a gentleman who lives in France, very close to where the series was set,” Stowe says. “He collects artwork and he’s got it on his wall alongside some of the world’s most famous artists. There’s genuine pieces of art worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and right in the middle is this prop from a BBC sitcom.”
To authenticate obscure props, auction houses have to “screen match” them to scenes, an often painstaking process. Sometimes, there are other clues. Mark Sach is the director of the Original Memorabilia Company in Colchester; a few years ago, he sold the purple suit Peter Kay wore in his 2005 Comic Relief recording of (Is This the Way to) Amarillo. It went for about £5,500.
“It was a perfect onscreen match, that was our starting point,” says Sach. There was also documented proof that the suit had previously been sold at a charity auction, and it was signed by Kay. A dry-cleaning ticket was discovered in the inside pocket. The yellow slip read: “Due Fri. Mrs Gargan”. Which, Sach says, turned out to be Kay’s wife’s surname.
When buyers obtain this powerfully nostalgic memorabilia, some stick it on the wall, others lock it away in storage, and still others star in KitKat adverts. Chris Balcombe is a 62-year-old photographer from Hampshire who owns an original Doctor Who Dalek with sections dating back to 1963, plus two other replica Daleks. In the early 00s, he climbed inside a replica to feature in a chocolate bar ad featuring British entertainment figures.
“I remember going to a big multiplex and asking the manager if I could just watch the adverts before the film,” Balcombe says. “They let me – but they kept an eye on me.”
While Balcombe normally lies and says his Daleks are in a storage unit, he confesses now that they live in his “secure” garage, near his lawnmower. He owns numerous other Doctor Who masks, costumes, heads and weapons, and even a bottle of fictional soft drink Bubble Shock featured in the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures.
“I can’t remember what triggered it at all,” Balcombe says of his 25-year hobby. “Basically, I had some money to spend, and nostalgia comes into this hugely.” Balcombe never hid behind his sofa when watching Doctor Who, but remembers cuddling up with his mum and dad when the Daleks were on screen.
Although Balcombe’s memorabilia collection is primarily centred on Doctor Who, he owns a few other props. One is a Yamaha DX7 keyboard that was regularly used on Top of the Pops. Another is a chequebook from 70s gameshow Blankety Blank. Another – that he doesn’t often mention – is a medal from Jim’ll Fix It.
While some props become less desirable over time, others become more valuable. “What things are valuable today and what things might be valuable in a few years’ time is solely driven by nostalgia,” says Tim Lawes, director of UK consignments at Propstore, a memorabilia auction house with London and Los Angeles offices. “Movies from the early 00s and the 90s are now seeing big price increases and that’s purely because people who grew up with those films are now thirtysomething, fortysomething, and they have some disposable income.” In 2021, Propstore sold Will Ferrell’s Elf costume for £218,750. Twenty-odd years ago, Lawes sold a Mr Blobby costume for about £5,000.
Blobby, as a chaotic staple of the 90s, could certainly fetch a pretty price today, but no auctioneer or collector I speak with thinks the (notably never used onscreen) eBay costume was really worth £60,000. Scott isn’t prepared to reveal the most he has spent on an item, but says “every last penny” he earns has been put into props. His favourite item in his collection by far is his original Mr Blobby, purely because he bought it for his dad, who died seven years ago.
Every prop Scott owns is because of his own personal connection to a show. “That’s what I’ve done over the years, is just made that connection with my memories as a kid,” he says. “You never know the value of a moment until it’s a memory.”
