Fellows & Sons - Tommy Tranter

Tommy Tranter

As part of its services, Fellows carries out house clearances a source of much of the furniture it sells and also one of its more notable sales. Tommy Tranter was a local antiques dealer who lived in a large Victorian terraced house crammed with pictures, bronzes, music boxes, coloured glass and militaria. It took the valuers two days to empty the house due to the sheer volume of items and was split into a two day sale. A story had leaked that Tommy had died intestate and as a result Fellows were besieged by ‘wannabe’ Tranters. Fellows did however discover his sister who had been adopted at birth and she became a significant beneficiary of the value of her late brother's collections.

The second day of the sale went live on local TV. Queues of people formed outside the auction house, each wanting an item from the Tommy Tranter collection. It was one of Fellows’ more famous sales.