The auctioneer cradled his gavel in his palm like a pipe, the handle pointing towards him. It gave his patter the air of a Victorian gentleman holding forth by the mantelpiece in a period drama. You’re waving at me.” Under the hammer was a Barclays Manager of the Month trophy, complete with travel case, but no indication of which Premier League luminary once owned it.
It outstripped its estimate and sold for £700. An hour and a half into what Budds auction house dubbed its “Octoberfest” of sporting memorabilia, David Convery at the podium showed no sign of fatigue, save the occasional swig from a water bottle. There were 332 lots in total; Convery regularly manages sales with twice as many.
In his three decades as an auctioneer he’s even secured some world-record prices, from the oldest surviving FA Cup to Pelé’s 1970 World Cup final shirt. But sporting collectibles have never been bigger business than now. This week a jersey worn by Michael Jordan in the second game of the 1998 NBA finals – his “Last Dance” season for the Chicago Bulls – sold for over £10m, the kind of sum that might otherwise buy you a Mayfair townhouse.
It was unprecedented in basketball but only just – two weeks previously, the jersey Jordan wore in game three had gone for £9.3m. And that had broken the record set by – you better believe it – Jordan’s game one jersey, which Sotheby’s sold in 2022. Last week’s Budds catalogue was never going to reach those heights but it still contained some star items.
Almost all were the property of Lawrence Dallaglio, the former England rugby union captain, declared bankrupt a year ago and now treading the well-worn path of sportspeople forced to sell their mementoes of the glory days. Seven years ago Boris Becker raised nearly £700,000 by selling trophies he had amassed, including a replica of the US Open trophy he won against Ivan Lendl in 1989. Unfortunately in his case it wasn’t enough to prevent further trouble with the taxman.
Running an auction is like writing a set list – you can’t just start with your biggest numbers, you have to warm up the audience, build to the good stuff. Diane Modahl’s leotard from the 1998 Commonwealth Games proved, somewhat ironically, a false start; no takers, even at £50 and with the 800m runner’s spikes and signature thrown in. A £5 note autographed by Jack Nicklaus did considerably better, and gradually the ephemera – signed prints, photos and programmes – gave way to more substantial stuff, like cricket caps and blazers from the days when England still wore the MCC’s colours and crest overseas.
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