A complete run of Wisden for the years 1864-1997 that sold for a total of £62,000 had the earlier issues, to 1878, present as uniformly bound Billings facsimiles of 1960, but from 1896 onwards they were present as the scarcer hardback issues throughout.
The very first hardback edition, the 33rd Wisden, sold at £9200, with those for the following three years fetched £4600, £2800 and £3100. A hardback copy of the very rare WWI Wisden of 1916 was sold at £3400.
Sold at £720 was a silk scorecard for a match played at Lords in May 1878 during the inaugural Australian tour of England. The remarkably low scores are worth recording: MCC batted first and were all out for 33, to which Australia replied with only a slightly better 41.
England managed just 19 in their second innings and Australia, scoring 12 for the loss of just a single wicket, quickly wrapped up the match. The lanky Spofforth, Australia's 'Demon Bowler', returned figures of 6-4 and 4-16.
A card bearing the signatures of Victor Trumper plus the other 14 members of the Australian touring team of 1899, together with a 1907 signature of W.G. Grace, was sold for £1270 in a June 16-17 sale held in Ludlow by Mullock Madeley.
The Knights sale also saw a bid of £700 on a watercolour decorated album page signed by members of the 1932-33 MCC touring side to Australia, while a menu for a birthday dinner held in 1932 on the S.S. Orontes, signed by Jardine, Larwood, Hobbs, Hammond and other members of that same team as they sailed towards Australia for what was to become known as the 'Bodyline Tour', was sold for £580 in a Strides sale of July 6.
