Leski Auctions achieves 80% clearance rate at 'live' online auction

By Richard Brewster, on 13-May-2020

The "live" auction, featuring 716 lots – Leski Auctions biggest sporting sale in years – gave  buyers the choice of lodging bids for individual items before the auction, phone line bidding or bidding online as auctioneer Charles Leski stood alone on the rostrum calling out to an empty room.

Strong support from the Leski clients logging into the "virtual auction room" resulted in an almost 80 per cent clearance rate at the actual auction.

The autograph book’s illustrated title page is dated 1925 but contains a double page spread of autographs from West Indian teams visiting Australia from 1920-1931. (Lot 141 )

An autograph book now almost 100 years old and featuring cricket signatures from a bygone era, that sold above its catalogue estimate for $6500. The autograph book, (detail above) was the top selling item at Leski Auctions "live" Sporting Memorabilia sale in Melbourne on May 10 with Australia still operating under lockdown restrictions during the world coronavirus pandemic.

An autograph book now almost 100 years old and featuring cricket signatures from a bygone era, that sold above its catalogue estimate for $6500. The autograph book, (detail above) was the top selling item at Leski Auctions "live" Sporting Memorabilia sale in Melbourne on May 10 with Australia still operating under lockdown restrictions during the world coronavirus pandemic.

It also has New South Wales and Victorian team signatures from 1927, the English Test team from the Third Test during the 1928-29 series with a hand written note to "please autograph for Don Bradman" (Australia’s greatest ever batsman), an illustrated page headed "English Women’s Cricket Team Touring Australia 1934-5", "South Africans 1931-2" and "Australian Eleven 1931".

The framed 1924 South Australian cricket cap worn by Australian spin genius of his era Clarrie Grimmett (Lot 140 ) was the next best-selling lot, changing hands for $4200 – while a Sykes "Don Bradman World Record" bat carrying the signatures of players who featured in the Fourth Test at Brisbane from the infamous 1932-33 Bodyline series between Australia and England (Lot 162 ) brought $3600.

Won by England, this was the match that gave their Test squad the Ashes series and they went onto cement the win with a 4-1 victory.

The Bodyline controversy, where the English team under captain Douglas Jardine employed special legside bodyline bowling tactics to intimidate the Australian batsman and negate the free and high scoring Don Bradman, continues to the current day. 

The Test cap worn by famous New Zealand faster Sir Richard Hadlee (Lot 275 ), who played 86 Tests taking 431 wickets and scoring 3124 runs, was another popular lot, going under the hammer, again above its catalogue estimate, for $3200.

Curtley Ambrose’s West Indian Test cap (Lot 288 ) also was keenly sought, selling for $3000, while a 1923 Essendon Football Club Victoria Football League premiership medal in 15 carat gold brought $2600.

Several items returned $2000 including a 1914 Australasian Football Council gold medallion (Lot 387 ), a 1933 Rugby League jersey from the 1933-34 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain (Lot 627 ) and an historically significant signed letter dated 6 March 1932 from Indian Prince Ranjitsinhji to King George V representing the future political organisational interests of the princely dynasties within India (Lot 160 ).

 

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About The Author

Richard Brewster has been writing about the antiques and art auction industry for almost 20 years, first in a regular weekly column for Fairfax's The Age newspaper and also in more recent times for his own website Australian Auction Review. With 45 years experience as a journalist and public relations consultant, in 1990 Richard established his own business Brewster & Associates in Melbourne, handling a wide range of clients in the building, financial, antiques and art auction industries.