Sporting Memorabilia & Equipment

SETTING an auction record for a golf medal, Willie Fernie's 1883 Open Championship winner's medal sold for £48,500 at the sale held by Maxwells of Wilmslow, Cheshire on July 15. In good condition and in its original box, the silver-gilt medal was won by Scotland’s four-times runner-up in his only Open victory at Musselburgh.

This year’s FA Cup was seen as something of a turn-up with Portsmouth and Cardiff, two teams from outside the Premier League’s top four, reaching the final. But there was a time when the now-mighty Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal were nowhere to be seen in the competition.

IT was the finest UK collection of antique fishing tackle to come to auction for a decade and it arrived via an unusual route.

THREE bespoke Hardy reels were offered by Holts as part of their shooting sale at Princess Louise House, Hammersmith on March 20.

WHEN bidders turned up at the first Indian Premier League cricket player auction in Mumbai last month, it was an antiques auctioneer from England they found on the rostrum.

Here’s one that didn’t get away. A major collection of antique fishing tackle comes to auction at Moore Allen & Innocent’s Cirencester saleroom on March 11 via an unusual route.

PROGRAMME Monthly and Football Collectable is a monthly magazine for football programme and memorabilia collectors. Published since 1981, it offers collecting advice including football programme prices and features famous programme covers.

In conjunction with the Nottingham-based sporting memorabilia specialists Trevor Vennett-Smith, Dreweatt Neate sold the Keith Crump Collection of Cricket Memorabilia at Donnington Priory on September 26.

In major league baseball, the favourite sport of the worldÕs richest nation, there is an annual tradition of honouring the player in the league who has contributed most to the success of their team. It is known as the Most Valuable Player Award or the M.V.P.

More than two decades since the first sale of golfing memorabilia, this once-booming niche market stands at an important crossroads.

“This was the earliest Cup Final programme I’ve ever seen,” said Graham Budd (15% buyer’s premium), referring to lot 747 in his sale on May 9-10 in association with Sotheby’s Olympia.

IT was a case of sweet and sour as two headline-grabbing London auctions came to an end before a bid could be raised last week.

Late January/early February has become the new slot for golfiana sales with events held by Bonhams Chester (January 28) and Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh (February 7).

The Richmond Gold Cup was one of the great Georgian flat races. Four miles, eight of the finest thoroughbreds of the day, and an ancient course set in the rolling Capability Brown parklands of Aske Hall.

A WEEK is a long time in politics, but nowadays the same can be said of sport. As soon as we read about a premiership player confirming his commitment to one club, the next day we see him signing for Chelsea.

Publicity worked well in the Lyon & Turnbull sale for Golf in the Year 2000, or What are We Coming To..., a work of 1892 by J.A.C.K.

Valued at £1500-2000, a signed first issue of William Blacker’s The Art of Angling..., printed in 1842 in Edinburgh by Anderson & Bryce and containing 31 trout flies and a single salmon fly attached with decorative coloured paper seals (see illustration top right) but lacking the single plate, was bid to £22,000 (Head).

If one wanted to view in miniature the issues experienced by the antiques trade as a whole, one could do worse than to look to the golfiana market.

British medals are realising ever higher prices and it seems that buyers almost invariably hail from these sceptred isles.

A Christie’s South Kensington sports sale of November 23 saw a bid of £5500 on a programme for the 1897 F.A. Cup Final at Crystal Palace in which Aston Villa completed a League and Cup double by beating Everton 3-2.