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WG Grace’s bat up for auction
By Will last year, at the end of April, 1 Comment »
Credit crunch, credit shmunch. If you’ve 30 grand stashed under your mattress, there can be few better things to spend it on than one of WG Grace’s bats. This is a wild exaggeration – I acknowledge that. You’d be far better off buying a garage or small plot of land for when The New Housing Boom goes bang in about 2020, but in times of credit crunchiness, we all need to enjoy ourselves. Here’s the bumpf:
A gift from W.G. Grace after the Lords Test to the Australian Syd Gregory, who gave it to his fellow tourist and brother-in-law Harry Donnan, on their return to Australia. Both were in the field when Grace scored his 1.000th Test run and Gregory, with Trott, set a new record partnership for any wicket of 221 in the second innings. From the evidence of the cording, Grace had probably used this bat for some time, culminating in the 1,000th run Test,
Donnan was Don Bradman’s batting mentor at St. George District Cricket Club, and through his association there passed this bat on to Club President Les Blackshaw, thence to his Estate. The bat was then first sold at LawsonMenzies, Sydney ‘Australian and Sporting History’ on April 4th 2005 as Lot 529, where it had been researched and catalogued by their consultant Tom Thompson, cricket publisher including to the late Sir Donald Bradman. The bat was then resold to the present vendor and returned to England after an absence of 113 years.
It’s up for action on May 12 at Sotherby’s.
1 Comment »Complete set of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanacks for auction
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of February, No Comments; be the first!
A “fine collection” of all 144 copies of The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack will go under the Bonhams hammer on Wednesday in Chester. Don’t even think about it unless you have £100,000 burning a whole in your pocket (which is roughly what Shivnarine Chanderpaul was bought for recently).
It is an extraordinary sum of money, even for what is admittedly quite a rare collection. Worth keeping an eye on Bonhams’ listings for cricket memorabilia – for interest more than anything.
No Comments »Sale to commence at 11:00
The deadline for submission of items to this sale has now passed. We are currently consigning items for our next sale on June 4th. Please contact 01244 313 936 if you have any items you wish to be valued.A fine collection of all 144 volumes issued from 1864 to 2007 along with 2 index issues, one covering the years 1864 to 1943 and the other 1864 to 1984, the entire set handsomely bound in uniform brown half morocco by Bayntun-Riviere of Bath, photographic plates in volumes 1889 and 1891-1915, some volumes with original wrappers bound in, 8vo, J. Wisden.
The vendor collected this set over the last 20 years and bought sufficient morocco goatskins and end papers to ensure that the set could be uniformly bound through to 2030, the residue of these are included in the lot for sale.
“Do I have $1.5m for Mr Dhoni?”
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of February, 13 Comments »
The IPL cattle market is, for now, over and the players have been sold, branded and sent to their respective clubs. One of our chaps in India did a brilliant job of live blogging the whole thing (I think most media outlets stole/borrowed the details), and it was fascinating seeing which players went to which clubs and for what sum. Albie Morkel went for $675,000; Adam Gilchrist for $700,000. Chris Gayle cost $800,000 while Kolkata bid $950,000 for Ishant Sharma.
The hype of the IPL is almost overflowing at the moment, but I still can’t see the tournament lasting the long haul. Super-powered teams have been forced together in the past – World XIs and so on – without great success, so why will the IPL be any different? It’s a quick injection of easy money for the players and a bit of fun for us, but don’t expect it to last. He says, desperately hoping he is right…
What do you make of it all?
13 Comments »Cricket Auction – Brian Lara’s world record 400
By Will 5 years ago, at the end of June, 1 Comment »
Wraye Wenigmann wrote to me about a very good cause she and the German Cricket Board have organised. Bill Frindall aka “The Bearded Wonder,” renowned scorer for BBC’s Test Match Special, has donated one of his last original radial charts of Brian Lara’s world record 400. From their website:
The chart, originally commissioned by The Times of England, is one of a limited edition. Printed in full colour on A4 card, each of the 400 numbered prints is accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate. On offer is Nr. 144.
The 215 lines (4 sixes, 1 five, 43 fours, 4 threes, 24 twos and 139 singles) are coloured to represent the damage inflicted upon England’s seven bowlers.
Wraye and co are auctioning this chart, with a starting price of 50Euros. All proceeds go towards the Diocesan Catastrophe Help Fund – a Tsunami relief charity who, in Wraye’s words, have “done a lot of work in the area, building houses and boats.”
You may bid by emailing bids@dcusa.de with a subject of “Lara Chart” (serious bidders only). A great opportunity to not only contribute to the Tsunami re-building programme, but to get your hands on a piece of cricketing memorabilia.
1 Comment »Lord’s Ashes Tickets
By Will 5 years ago, mid-May, No Comments; be the first!
Amazing to see the prices of Ashes tickets at Lord’s on eBay. Over £500 so far here
If I had the money I’d snap them up in a shot…
No Comments »Vast personal Cricket memorabilia auction
By Will 5 years ago, mid-April, 3 Comments »
On the train yesterday, I happened to read a peice by a Sotherby’s expert on some cricket memorabilia coming up for auction on Thursday at Christie’s. It’s part, or all, of the collection of the late Desmond Eager – once captain of Hampshire. The only details I can find of Eager are in a December 2000 edition of The Hampshire Cricket Society newsletter, and his name is only mentioned in passing.
By all accounts, he was a cricket-nut and is therefore welcomed warmly into cricket blogging circles, even though he’s now no longer with us. I’ve found the listings of all the sales at Christies which can be found here. There are some gems:
A Complete List of All the Grand Matches of Cricket that have been played in the Years 1804 & 1805 … by Stanhope and Graham – estimate £17,000-22,0000. The only recorded copy in existence-
WILLIAM EPPS
Cricket. A Collection of All the Grand Matches of Cricket played in England within Twenty Years, viz. from 1771 to 1791, never before published – This is absolutely fascinating – published way back in 1799, this scorecard (shown below) even uses Old English (replacing certain instances of the letter S with F, hence Hampfhire)
There are over 200 items being sold, and not just in “fantasy money” price ranges, so if you can spare time on Thursday and are in London, why not pop along? Never been to an auction myself, so I don’t know if you can just turn up, but I don’t see why not.
The article mentions one of the books, Le Cricket pour les Sportsmen Français which “represents a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to translate the laws of the game into French.” Examples:
Duck = Oeuf de canard (duck’s egg)
Googlie = Bowling haut et lent (bowling high and slow)
LBW = Jambe-devant-guichet (leg in front of ticket office)
Another book makes mention of the oddities of cricket, and the teams to have played it:
Handsome v Uglies
Women with bats v Men with Broomsticks playing left hand
Heavy with Sin v Light with Honesty
What a collection, and thank God I’ve found it. This is as close as I, or even most people reading this, will come to looking at the documents and books unless people like the MCC or museums are willing to cough up for them. I really hope so.
3 Comments »Cricket ball up for auction
By Will 5 years ago, mid-March, 2 Comments »
Just found this. It’s a commemorative ball, given to Edward Barratt. He bowled the Australians out in 1878 (stop laughing – we have done other things since then). It’s up for auction at the Chester branch of Bonham’s next month.
Initially I presumed it was a Test match, but on trawling through Google found it was “just” Surrey v Australia on their tour here in 1878. More stats on Edward here where you’ll note he took over 700 wickets at 17 each! Handy bowler – can we resurrect him for this summer’s Ashes…?
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2 Comments »