Sporting Memorabilia & Equipment

The Barbarians jersey worn by JPR Williams (1949-2024) in one of rugby union’s most famous matches sold at Rogers Jones (22% buyer’s premium) for £27,500 on April 10.

With golfers looking forward to the US Open in June and the British Open in July, as well as the Wimbledon Tennis Championships running for two weeks from June 30, these sports are about to hit the headlines.

One-off football ‘super cup’ style ties are nothing new, as a very much in demand programme offered at Telford saleroom Mullock Jones (20.5% buyer’s premium) demonstrated.

It is perhaps fitting that the shirt belonging to a player who scored two goals successively in the quarter, semi final and final of the 1975 FA Cup would double its top estimate at Stacey’s (25% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

The fierce football rivalry between the Sky Blues and Red Devils led to a competition not on the pitch but on the rostrum thanks to the Graham Budd (24% buyer’s premium) two-day sale dubbed An Auction of Two Halves.

By the time H Turner’s book on billiards came out in 1849 (Northampton, printed for the author by JT Burgess) the game was hundreds of years old – with roots back to the 15th century.

An early leather-bound feather golf ball consigned for sale from a house move in Old Woking in Surrey comes for sale at John Nicholson’s in Haslemere on May 14.

More people than ever are getting hooked on angling, says the Angling Trust which reported that in 2023-24 as a result of participation events more than 43,000 people tried fishing for the first time.

One lucky bidder landed a top-of-the-line big game fishing rod made expressly for Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961).

Britains is best known as a producer of toy soldiers, but some of its ‘civilian’ figures required a different sort of bunker.

A copy of what is regarded as probably the rarest edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack came up at Knights Sporting Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) on March 21-23.

Underlining once again the desirability of football match programmes for games that were actually postponed or cancelled, an Arsenal example offered on March 3 hammered at £7500 via thesaleroom.com.