Williams Sisters Portrait, Riggs’s Jacket Lead U.S.T.A. Auction
BLOOMBERG.COM By Philip Boroff
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) — Aging sentimentalists may want to hold onto their antique wooden tennis rackets, at least until an unusual sale next week at the U.S. Open.
Guernsey’s, a closely held auctioneer, is offering some 500 lots at the Open, on Sept. 11 and 13, in what it calls the first North American auction devoted to vintage tennis items. The lots — on view at the Queens, New York, site through most of the two-week event — range from an autographed 1992 Yonex racket with a faded signature from American doubles specialist Pam Shriver (estimated $250 to $350) and balls signed by singles greats Donald Budge and Ken Rosewall ($250 to $350) to a 2002 LeRoy Neiman portrait of Venus and Serena Williams in action ($50,000 to $60,000).
Although the origins of the game date back centuries, tennis remains a collecting backwater. Ken Benner, a suburban Philadelphia tennis antiques dealer and founding member of the Tennis Collectors of America, said the top sale he could recall was in 1992, when a 1920 Wimbledon trophy won by Bill Tilden went for $71,500.
A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card changed hands in 2007 for $2.35 million.
“We live in the shadow of golf and baseball collectors,” said Benner, who consulted on the U.S. Open sale.
Baseball Bigger
With some 27 million tennis players in the U.S., memorabilia dealers are puzzled by the scant interest in their field. They acknowledge that even as participation grows, their game is unlikely ever to compete with baseball in popularity.
One problem may be that players themselves become unwitting and not necessarily enthusiastic collectors when they embrace the latest in light and powerful rackets.
“A vintage racket is last year’s model,” said Marie Williams, a retired New York City teacher who plays regularly at Central Park’s 30-court public facility. “The equipment changes so quickly.”
Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s, said the inspiration for the auction came when he took up the game a few years ago and noticed the enthusiasm among competitors.
He said a judge he competes against “would give up the bench in a minute if he could play full time.”
Ettinger said some of the proceeds will benefit the USTA, the White Plains, New York-based nonprofit that owns the Open.
Smaller Rackets
The old rackets show how much the game has changed over the years. For example, racket heads have swelled from about 6.5 inches wide in the 1870s — the birth of modern lawn tennis — to well over 10 inches today. Some early models lacked cushioned grips and were much heavier than today’s graphite versions.
Items associated with black players who broke barriers have some of the top price tags. A Neiman drawing of Arthur Ashe has a high estimate of $45,000. An off-white blazer that Althea Gibson wore in 1957 for the Wightman Cup — the women’s equivalent of the Davis Cup — is listed at $10,000 to $15,000. Her passport could go for $4,000 to $6,000.
The second highest estimate overall — $40,000 to $60,000 — is for a set of 16th-century Italian books that Guernsey’s said contains the first known reference to tennis.
A collection of memorabilia from the 1975 “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King — which King won — has a top estimate of $10,000. It includes Riggs’s yellow warm-up jacket.
“The rackets of the ‘60s and ‘70s aren’t collectible unless they’re unusual,” Benner said, adding that a Wilson Jack Kramer Autograph in perfect condition is currently worth about $25: “They made millions of those.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.
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