A pair of batting gloves gifted by Don Bradman to David Frith are being offered by Knight’s Sporting Auctions in Norwich on 18th March.
The gloves are part of the sale of the cricket collection of David Frith and are expected to sell for £15,000 - £25,000.
Frith is a famed cricket writer, historian and founding editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly, so the provenance doesn't get any better for fans of cricket memorabilia.
Bradman, also known as 'The Don', is considered to be the greatest batsman of all time, with an incredible test batting average of 99.94 - of those who have played more than 20 test matches, the next highest player average is 64.
Bradman presented the gloves to Frith when the two met at the Lord's Taverners reception at the London Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, on May 13 1974.
The gloves are an 'odd' pair with one being from the brand Slazenger 'Len Hutton' and the other being 'Frank Bryan of Worcester'.
Both gloves have been well used and believed to have been worn by Bradman, and are being sold with the original brown paper bag that the gloves were presented in to Frith.
Frith has added a handwritten note that the gloves were gifted to him by Don Bradman at the Lord's Taverners do.
Bradman's visit to London was his first visit in 10 years and proved to be his last.
Knight's rightly describe the gloves as "a very rare pair of cricket gloves once the property of the greatest batsman of all time".
The last pair of gloves to appear on the market had been signed 'To Mac from Don Bradman' and were sold by Christie's back in 2001 for just £1,528, but still smashing their £150 - £250 estimate.
Whilst the market for cricket memorabilia can still be considered to be in it's infancy (pricewise at least) Bradman did once hold the top spot as the most valuable piece of cricket memorabilia when his 1948 baggy green Australia cap was sold by Ludgrove's Auctioneers in Melbourne for A$425,000 in June 2003.
But that was later eclipsed when Shane Warne auctioned his baggy green for just over A$1m, to raise funds to help those affected by the Australian bush fires in 2019.
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About your Author:
Adrian Roose has over 30 years’ experience covering all aspects of the rare stamp & memorabilia industry during which he has sold over £50m of unique items, helping build collections for Royalty, household name celebrities and 1,000s of collectors around the world.
Adrian was previously a Director at Stanley Gibbons, a Board Member of Stampex, and Executive Director of Paul Fraser Collectibles, PFC Auctions and JustCollecting, prior to founding The Memorabilia Club.