Archive for category: Auction Action

The season may be over and the players off sunning themselves in Ayia Napa or wherever, but Ebay never sleeps. There is no respite for shirt collectors.

They must remain vigilant all year round in their polyester-craving quest, lest they be reminded of the bitterest of auction axioms…”if you snooze, you lose”.

May matched April for City kit intrigue, especially for matchworn items, many of which went for thouroughly reasonable amounts.

The biggest buzz was generated by a 1987/88 Admiral/Mansfield Beers home shirt with 8 on the back, suggesting it was used by Frankie Bunn who frequently wore that number. The partially flaked off sponsor and iron mark add rather than detract from this shirt’s charm, and it went for £160 after 20 bids.

The same seller had another trick up their sleeve, a 1979/80 long sleeved Europa home shirt with 9 on the back. This only went for £77 after 12 bids, the low end price possibly explained by the numerous holes in the shirt. Still, a great piece.

Whoever got this player worn 1989/90 warm up top for £32.50 got an absolute bargain. It’s a bit faded and the Matchwinner logo on the back is degraded, but that just lets you know it was worn throughout the whole season.

From more recent times, this matchworn Manucho shirt from our first Premier League season was listed twice in May with a £75 asking price. The seller eventually accepted a bid of £45. Whatever your thoughts on Manucho’s ability, £45 for a matchworn Premier League shirt is an utter steal.

Are Danny Webb’s matchworn shorts really worth £21? Someone thinks so, though they were incorrectly listed. They were described as 2002/03 home shorts, but the black crest shield suggests they were from 2003/04 when we used black shields sewn on with amber thread rather than amber shields (used the year before) to distinguish them from the black away shorts which also used amber shields. Webb only made a handful of appearances in 2003/04 before departing to Cambridge.

Ray Parlours matchworn shorts from 2006/07 seem more worthy of a similar price of £21.50. Oddly, Jason Price’s worn shorts from the 2004/05 promotion campaign went for a mere pound, as did some alternate amber shorts that were match prepared for but ultimately unused by Nathan Doyle at Luton. We snaffled those.

Onto replicas, the seller of this 1992/93 Matchwinner/Bonus away shirt with ‘Windass 10’ on the back (that we featured in last month’s Auction Action) twice had to relist after winning bidders failed to pay up. When finally sold, it went for £60, some £40 less than was bid the first time round.

Last month we also mentioned an XL limited edition ‘Needlers’ shirt whch fetched £51 for its seller. In May the very same shirt was auctioned again, this time with ’10 Windass’ applied to the back and it went for £100.

The reseller didn’t mention the hole though. Naughty. It’s worth noting that squad names didn’t appear on Football League shirts until 1999, though often fans had sports shops add them anyway.

Even damaged 1992/93 tiger stripe home shirts are considered valuable to some, this shirt with the B & O of BONUS missing went for £47 after 12 bids. One of the Pelada leopard spot 1994/95 follow up shirts went for £35, while a 1995-97 Super League/IBC maroon away shirt went for £40 after a 17 bid battle.

You don’t see many Great Escape season away shirts up for grabs, this slightly beaten up one attracted 7 bids and sold for £35. A home shirt from the same year, 1998/99, garnered 15 bids and went for £40.

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink’s retirement from the game coincided with the listing of an XXL 2009/10 home shirt with his name and number on the back. It featured the full sized Premier League letters intially used for the Dutchman’s game shirts before smaller letters were ordered by the club. After 8 bids, it raised £24.50.

That’s all for this month. Happy bidding!

 

March was a manic period for the Tigers, squeezing 9 games into it’s 31 days. it was also an interesting month for fans seeking old City shirts.

There were some relative bargains to be had where match worn/issued shirts were concerned, a signed Henrik Pedersen worn 2007-08 home shirt fetched £80, whereas a 2000/2001 Theo Whitmore home shirt  went for just £62.

Tiger striped 1992/93 shirts continue to command triple figure bids, this one went for just under £176, prompting someone to ask £220 as a buy it now price for one in size large.  It seems a bit cheeky to set such a high price when the seller says the B of the BONUS sponsor has a split in it, which may explain why no one has stumped up for it after a full 31 days listed. The same seller is asking £300 for a 1982-84 home shirt in large. Cuh.

Admiral reproduced that design in a much shinier fabric for seasons 1984/85 and 1985/86, and a youths (35-37″) version went for £102 after receiving 19 bids. Another one, also in a youths size but with the measurements not listed garnered 17 bids but went for just £29.66. Some cautionary tales for people listing old shirts then, let bidders decide what a shirt is worth, and state the exact size if you want people to bid big.

A centenary home shirt signed by 28 players spanning several generations, including Andy Davidson, John McSeveney, Ken Wagstaff, Chris Chilton, Billy Whitehurst, Richard Jobson and Kevin Francis fetched just £51, less than the £55 asking price for a 2009/10 replica home shirt signed by Jimmy Bullard. Not that anyone has paid that amount so far, though one person has made an offer, Paul Duffen perhaps.

Some 90s away shirts were snapped up, a 1993/94 Pelada/Pepis jade shirt in large sold for £69, while an XXL Super League/University of Hull white shirt from 1997/98 went for £72. Our favourite item auctioned in March was a late 70s Europa home shirt in a youths 30/32″ size. The seller correctly stated that replicas were a rarity back then, a surprise then that it fetched just £37.

 

Sex sells they say, but not always for much. ‘Chambermaid Julia’, an eBay seller, paired what appeared to be an unsponsored 1995-97 City away shirt with suspenders while modelling the size small shirt for a recent auction.

Though the seller’s marketing style drew attention on the #hcafc Twitter hashtag, the shirt garnered only two bids, selling for a mere £5.50.

Is this a reflection on Julia’s charms or on the lack of City fans that can get into a small shirt? We may never know, but a large Liverpool shirt went for just £11.50, despite a whole lot of leg being on show in the item photo .

Attracting far more offers was a Pelada training jacket (size 46/48 tellingly) from 1994/95.

Fans of foreign words may know that Pelada is a Portuguese term that roughly translates as ‘naked’ and is used in Brazil to describe kickabouts, ‘stripped down’ games of football if you will.

Pelada is also a Melton Mowbray based teamwear manufacturer who back in the mid-90s made kits for West Brom, Reading, Mansfield and City. They were tasked with making a non-copyright violating facsimile of Matchwinner’s tiger stripe 1992/93 kit but succeeded only in producing the vilest City home shirt EVER! They did produce a moderately handsome jade, white and black away kit though. Oddly, all the training gear featured green trim (this appears to be a Pelada thing, referencing Brazil throughout their range), and this City training jacket had three green stripes split by two white stripes on its zip up collar.

The jacket was bid on seven times by three seperate bidders and sold for £46.00.

Mid-month, someone paid £49.99 for a 2008/09 ‘Windass 9’ home shirt featuring a Remembrance Day poppy appliqué on the front.

We can’t help but wonder if whoever bought this shirt thinks they now own something matchworn or player issued, even though the seller, ‘legendsandicons’, didn’t list the shirt that way.

City only started using poppy appliqués in 2009/10, the season after this shirt was worn, furthermore this shirt doesn’t have the Premier League sleeve transfers.

A shirt that might well have been worn by Deano is this long sleeved ‘Super League’ 1995-97 home shirt that has the correct competition badges on the sleeves and number 10 on the back in the appropriate typeface for a player worn shirt. The auction is still live if you fancy bidding, but as always remember the first rule of bidding, caveat emptor!