Sporting Collectables

As you know almost anything connected with golf is collectable. I've writtten a short article all about golf collectables while I've been here in Leuchars and you can read it HERE.

I had a long trip back to London from Hutton in the Forrest, where we had a fabulous day on the Antiques Roadshow – all will be revealed on the next series!

I got home in time to see the last part of Andy Murray's defeat. . .a sad day for Scotland and the whole of the country. It's been a sad time for English football, although I'm told the cricket team are doing great! I decided to concentrate on football memorabilia in my Daily Telegraph column this week.

It was no coincidence that a few weeks before the opening ceremony of the World Cup, Sir Geoff Hurst's red No. 10 shirt, which he wore for England in the 1966 World Cup final, was put on display at Harrods with a price tag of £2.3 million. This was some 25 times more than the figure Sir Geoff received for it at auction at Christie's a decade earlier, when he sold it to an unnamed West Ham fan. Football memorabilia has certainly become big business. But before kicking off on a spending spree, take note of these tips. You can read more HERE.

I'm told by the men in my house that something called the World Cup involving football is happening shortly. . .no doubt they will be sat glued to the TV! Seriously though there are some very collectable football items around and particularly those associated with England's World Cup winning side of 1966. Take this first day cover from the 1966 winners that has been signed by all the winning team that's valued at over £2,000. You can take a look at the many football collectables in our archive. All you have to do is sign up, which is free, and then you can browse all of our listings.

Coming from the Scottish Borders it means that from as soon as I was old enough to take any interest in sport it was rugby that I knew was the most important. In the days before the professional game took over it was from the Borders that most of Scotland's greatest rugby players hailed. It was not just rugby players either. Just down the road from Galashiels where I lived was Hawick which was home to the greatest rugby commentator of all time – Bill McClaren. He once famously said that "a day out of the Borders was a day wasted." Now I know that's not entirely right, but I have to say he was not far wrong! Today it's the play-offs for the Guinness Premiership final and so I thought I'd mention a little bit about rugby collectables.

Rugby does not attract anything like the interest of football or golf or cricket collectables. While people obviously love the game they are not so keen on collecting things associated with it. In the latest edition of Miller's Collectables we have a rugby ball from the first Rugby World Cup in 1987 signed by the England squad which is valued at £500-600. A limited edition All-Blacks shirt from 1997 with the signatures of all the players is valued at a similar level, maybe slightly more. It is as often as not shirts signed by rugby internationals that come up for auction. These have sometimes already been auctioned for charity and are simply being sold on.

If you sign up on our home page you will be able to search all the items we have listed on the site, including all the rugby items – it's absolutely free! Among the rugby items listed is a 2003 Rugby World Cup final programme signed by Martin Johnson, signature in black marker pen to front cover and inscribed 'Best Wishes'. It's valued at £100-150.

I came across an interesting article in the Times today. It starts out by saying "He spends most of his professional life scouring antique shops for £20 curios to sell at auction and plays as a humble wicketkeeper in the seventh division of the Wiltshire County League."  For my American readers let me tell you that a wicketkeeper is the man that stands behind the batsman, a bit like the catcher in baseball. . .and that's as much as I'm going to say about cricket!. You can read the rest of the article HERE.