The first official codified set of boxing rules were published in this broadside in 1743 and went on to govern the sport for nearly a century.
Heavyweight champion Jack Broughton introduced the rules in an attempt to reduce the increasing brutality and lawlessness of pugilistic contests. They codified and eliminated certain practices, such as hitting opponents while they were down or seizing them by their hair.
The unframed 15 x 20in (39 x 52cm) broadside, laid to card and illustrated with various coloured vignettes of boxing contestants and a central boxing scene, is estimated at £1500-1700 in a sale of toys, collectables, historical documents and Indian ephemera at Mullock’s in Ludlow, Shropshire, on June 14.
mullocksauctions.co.uk or see this item on the saleroom.com
Clevedon Salerooms’ quarterly specialist sale on June 7 will feature a 15-lot section of items from the home of English architect CFA Voysey (1857-1941).
Never offered on the market before, the group was inherited from his estate in 1941 and includes Voysey’s own brass and mahogany beam postage scale, estimated at £400-600.
A late 18th century Bristol figure of a boy leaning on a tree stump playing a hurdy-gurdy is estimated at £900-1200 in a June 21 sale at Bristol Auction Rooms in Ashton.
The 7½in (19cm) high piece, painted with enamels and gilded, is unmarked.
An unusual English rapier, possibly dating to the early 17th century, is offered in the Militaria & Ethnographica sale at Tennants on June 13 in Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
The hilt has a square-section bar to the crossguard and a diamond section double-edge steel blade which is stamped on one side with FRA. Each side of the broad ricasso is stamped with an armourer’s mark.
Estimate £800-1200.
