LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2008 May Signature Sports Collectibles #709  / 

19573

1931 Bobby Jones Signed Golf Ball. It is storie

Currency:USD Category:Sports - Cards & Fan Shop / Sports - Autographs (Original) Start Price:1,500.00 USD Estimated At:3,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD
1931 Bobby Jones Signed Golf Ball. It is storie
<B>1931 Bobby Jones Signed Golf Ball. </B></I> It is stories like this one that make us love the collecting hobby. The year was 1931, and a small North Carolina town was abuzz with the news that the legendary golfer Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., fresh from his sweep of the Grand Slam of golf, was to visit. Golf, we must remember, was one of the great spectator sports of the era, on a par with baseball and boxing, and Jones was even more beloved and admired than Tiger Woods is today. A twelve-year old boy, anxious to meet this Golden Age god, crouched in the brush and brambles that lined the fairway of the local golf course on the day that Jones was to play, and waited. Finally, in the distance, the dashing young golfer appeared on the tee, and launched his ball to a point in the fairway not far from where the boy was waiting. As Jones strode toward his ball in preparation of the second shot, the boy emerged from the woods. Trembling a bit with the nerves of coming face to face with his idol, the boy produced a golf ball from his hip pocket and extended it toward Jones. "Will you please sign this ball for me, sir?" he asked. Jones, ever the gentleman, kindly obliged, though he did question the medium. "The ink will never last on a golf ball, son," he told him. The youngster was undeterred, however. "I'll be really careful with it," he assured the golfing legend.<BR><BR> And so he was. The boy packed it in a cotton-filled matchbox, autograph side up, and there it remained for seventy years, before finally finding its way into the collecting hobby. The result is one of the most exciting golf artifacts to reach the auction block, a single signed "Robt Jones, Jr." golf ball, remaining in remarkable 5/10 to 6/10 condition due to the young collector's promised diligence. There is some crazing to the "Spalding Kro-flite" blue-dotted ball's surface, and while it does cross the path of Jones' ink, it does little to detract. Infinitely more rare than the Babe Ruth single signed baseball, this piece offers the serious golf collector the opportunity to play the next part in this fascinating and charming story that all began with a boy crouching in the North Carolina underbrush, waiting for a legend to arrive. <I>LOA from PSA/DNA. LOA from James Spence Authentication.</B></I> <BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Balls, Pucks, etc., Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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