Sport memorabilia

THE Coppa Italia is the Italian equivalent of the English FA cup. When the example shown right was won by Torino in 1943 it was the second occasion on which they had taken home the trophy.

THIS rugby and football memorabilia sale of just over 500 lots was not one of the specialist sporting auctioneer’s most spectacular outings, dominated as it was by paper ephemera rather than expensive medals and silverware, but the turn-out and take-up were as strong as ever.

Stanley Matthews’ 1953 FA Cup winner’s medal, sold for £20,000 to TV presenter and Stoke fan Nick Hancock, was the lot on which national media publicity focussed, but the Football Memorabilia sale held by Sotheby’s on September 21 – one of the first sales at the new Olympia salerooms – also contained some 150 lots of programmes, match cards, magazines and related ephemera.

Today’s national cricket teams jet around the world to their Test series by plane, but back in the early 20th century the cruise liner was the chosen mode of transport.

UK: ILLUSTRATED here are two items used to decorate the covers of the sale catalogue issued for by Dominic Winter for their May 17 Sports sale.

UK: THE football season may now have ended but back on April 24 when the Chester rooms of Phillips (15 per cent buyer’s premium) held their bi-annual sporting sale the season was at its height.

As most followers of the genre know, auctions of sporting memorabilia are one field where the ‘collectable’ epithet carries equal, or arguably even heavier weight than the ‘antique’ one.

UK: TWO days of selling in the niche sporting memorabilia market resulted in something of a score draw for specialists Mullock Madeley.