Sporting Collectables

At Bonhams in Chester today sporting memorabilia belonging to the former Welsh goalkeeper Dai Davies raised £15,648. More than 30 items were sold, with the highest-priced item - a 1980-81 full Welsh international cap - fetching £1,200. The Everton, Wrexham and Swansea player won 52 caps for Wales and now teaches Pilates in Llangollen, Denbighshire.

With the news of Lewis Hamilton's win in the Formula 1 drivers championship it reminded me that motor racing collectables are harder to find than for many sports. It also appears to be a very specialised group of collectors who go in for it; I found this interesting site with an article about what can be collected.

Of course there's always toy racing cars that can be collected. This late 1950s Vanwall is worth between £70 and £100.

Convery Auctions have a sporting memorabilia sale at the Royal Highland Suite at Ingliston, next to Edinburgh Airport on 5 November starting at 11.30 a.m. Among the very interesting collection of lots offered for sale is a pair of David Beckham's football boots. Each boot embroidered No.7, Beckham, Brooklyn and autographed and dedicated To Mick, Best Wishes, David Beckham 7; they're in a perspex display case. They originate from the Beckham's 2002 Charity Garden Party and were auctioned at their World Cup charity garden party in May 2002. The boots were purchased by Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall for £29,000.

The estimate on the boots is £3,000 to £5,000 but what interests us is why is he selling them?

With the Olympic games in full swing my attention was drawn to a small piece of Olympic history that is coming up for sale in a couple of weeks time in Yorkshire at the Royal Armouries in Leeds in an auction run by Smith & Wilde. The Games of The X! th Olympiad were held in Berlin in 1936 and among the items for sale in their Militaria Auction on 5 September is an Olympic Games Enamel Badge. It's a large size Olympic Games white enamel and gilt badge. It's listed in nice condition.and has an estimate of £25-£35 which seems like it's a bit on the low side with both it's Olympic conection and it's Nazi links.

You really do have to wonder at what would possess people to steal something they have little chance of selling on the open market. Then again the four autographed bats belonging to Sir Don Bradman that were stolen from s sport’s shop in Darwin, Northern Australia, may have been stolen to order for some ‘collectormaniac.’ The bats worth a combined A$ 40,000, a little under £20,000 were stolen when thieves smashed the front window of the shop. Bradman died in 2001, at the age of 92, is regarded as the greatest batsman of all time. He achieved a Test average of 99.94 playing international cricket for Australia between 1928 and 1948.