There
are many collecting divisions that exist as subcategories
of golfing, just to give you an idea of the magnitude
of this collectible field: art, autographs, books,
balls, ball boxes, bags, bag tags, clubs (wood
shaft), club (organization) history, drivers,
fancy face woods, emblems, golf jewellery, classic
play clubs, medals, memorabilia, putters, programs,
score cards, tools of golf; trophies, wedges,
and the list goes on.
The generalists, those collectors/dealers who
offer a little bit of everything in every category,
are far more numerous than the specialists. When
one thinks of the growth of golf; one re-alizes
that the very early items are quite rare and,
of course, as a result much more valuable.
As an example of this some of the "statistics
on the number of golf courses in the United Kingdom
have been listed. In 1850 there were only seventeen;
by 1870 the figure had doubled to 34. By 1890
it had increased eleven fold to 387.
By 1900, just ten years later, it had increased
to 2,330 and ten years after that, in 1910 in
the United Kingdom there were 4,135 golf courses.
The statistics for North America are not as plentiful.
Suffice to say that by 1890 there were a 'handful"
of golf courses. In the decade between 1890 and
1900 over 1,000 courses ex-isted. In the next
three decades at least 10,000 courses were built
in North America in each decade.
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Antique
Wooden Putters |
In 1895 the Bridgeport
Gun Implement Com-pany began manufacturing golf
clubs. By 1915 Spalding, MacGregor and Wilson
were all going full blast producing golf clubs,
balls, etc., by the millions. By 1925 there were
2,150 golf pros in the United States, many of
whom were also pro-ducing golf clubs, in their
own golf shops, with their names on them. Obviously
many of these clubs were made by manufacturers
who simply put the pro's name on the head.
There were 750 golf pros in the United King-dom
prior to 1935. Collecting hickory shafted clubs
made by these pros goes all the way back to 1850
when golf started, and they are very valuable.
The earliest American clubs are no earlier than
1895. Any American clubs up to a period that is
probably around 1912 (which is by com-mon agreement,
the end of the smooth faced era) are extremely
rare, in comparison to the liter-ally tens of
millions that were made from that period forward
to the end of the hickory shaft era, commonly
agreed upon to be 1935.
There are still literally millions of North American
hickory clubs floating around and if you are equipped
with enough knowledge and interest, it can be
a lot of fun collecting the various clubs.
There area good number of collectors today who
have collections of five to ten thousand hickory
shafted clubs. Their knowledge is ency-clopedic
and, as in all collecting, there is a pipeline.
From the pickers to the flea markets, to the antique
shows to the malls, to the sports dealers to the
golf specialist dealers, to the serious collectors,
museums and golfing entities which are amassing
significant collections.
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