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Saturday 22 November 2008

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Thanks for the memories

Wednesday, 26th March 2008

Alex Massie says that sports memorabilia is on a roll

As was so often the case, P.G. Wodehouse reached deep into the heart of the matter: collecting sporting memorabilia requires dedication, a willingness to speculate, a tolerance of risk and, too often, a certain amount of the ‘iron in the soul’ that equips a man to survive uxorial disapproval.

Readers will recall the sorry tale, related in ‘High Stakes’, of how the American millionaires Bradbury Fisher and Gladstone Bott risked butlers, railroads and their wives’ wrath to secure ownership of ‘the authentic baffy used by Bobby Jones in his first important contest — the Infants’ All-In Championship of Atlanta, Georgia, open to those of both sexes not yet having finished teething’.

Wodehouse was right, however: the novice collector is well advised to buy early and hold. A football shirt worn at youth level by a star such as Wayne Rooney could have increased its value tenfold by now. Budding collectors should ‘recognise an up-and-coming player like a Rooney or a Gareth Bale and search for shirts and trophies they won at under-16 level or even earlier’, says David Convery, who headed Christie’s sports memorabilia business before setting up his own house last year.

When Christie’s held its first dedicated sports memorabilia auction in 1989, 300 lots sold for a combined £50,000. ‘That wasn’t a bad effort,’ says Convery, who organised the sale. By 2005, the value of Christie’s sporting business had increased to £3 million.

‘The economy goes up and down, but the memorabilia business goes on,’ says Graham Budd, Sotheby’s memorabilia consultant, who also has his own auction house. ‘It’s not bomb-proof but it’s pretty secure.’

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