Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of self-promotion

You want to know more about the state of the sports memorabilia market? Of course you do. From my piece in this week’s Spectator:

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.

Whole thing here.

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