4/09/2017

Celebrity Premiums


Another sale which shows the power of celebrity ownership.  The putter Arnold Palmer used in winning the 1964 Masters sold for $97.690. In addition to the putter, a Master's green jacket thought to be made in the 1950s, owner unknown sold for nearly $140,000.  Golf memorabilia certainly seems like a hot category right now.

ESPN reports on the sale
The putter Arnold Palmer used to win the 1964 Masters sold for $97,690 early Sunday morning in an auction.

Ryan Carey, co-owner of Green Jacket Auctions, which sold the club, said the price paid was a record for a modern tournament-used golf club.

"The Arnold Palmer effect is dominating the golf collecting industry right now," Carey said. "In the past six months, we've had more requests for Arnold Palmer memorabilia than every living golfer combined."

The putter was donated in 1980 to raise money for youth golf in New Zealand.

"I am not sure I shouldn't have kept this one and tried it again at the present time," Palmer wrote at the time in a letter that came with the donation.

The impressive sale comes on the heels of Green Jacket Auctions sale of one of Palmer's Masters trophies, which was sold for $444,012 in December.

"Arnold Palmer is quickly becoming the golf collecting hobby's Mickey Mantle," Carey said. "There may be better golfers, but collectors are putting Palmer memorabilia ahead of anyone else of his generation."

Also sold in the auction was Sam Snead's 1954 Masters trophy ($94,152) and an authentic green Masters jacket believed to be made in the 1950s whose original owner is unknown.

The jacket, which was discovered at a thrift store in Toronto and purchased for $5 in 1994, sold for a remarkable $139,349.

Jackets given to Masters winners rarely hit the market. The record price for a jacket sold is $682,229, paid in 2013 for the jacket given to Horton Smith, winner of the first Masters in 1934.
Source: ESPN


No comments: