It’s finally 2023 for Auction Action, that is to say we’re always a month behind proceedings as we review the Tigers apparel recently up for grabs online, With January 2023 in the history books, Mike Carter (aka @MikeyCarter90) takes us through the listing highlights…

It was a relatively slow month, perhaps folks are still conscious of the festive expenses of December, but regardless some player worn garb was snapped up. This Matchworn Gary Alexander 2000/01 away shirt was listed as an auction with a start price of £150, but the best offer option was taken and this silver and navy Patrick branded shirt with ALEXANDER 9 on the back in full, player size appliques was picked up for £180.

It took a few goes around for this squad signed 2017/18 Michael Hector away shirt to sell. It was initially listed as an auction, starting at £100 before being reduced to a £50 starting price in December, but with a reserve (meaning it wouldn’t sell for an amount the seller wasn’t happy with). This listing finished at £51, which was below the reserve price so it didn’t lead to a successful sale. It was re-listed in January and sold for £65 at the third time of asking. The seller never mentioned it was a match issued shirt, perhaps they simply didn’t realise, but all the appliques are right including the back of shirt sponsor. Not everyone is into full squad signed shirts but if this was listed as a player shirt it would surely have gone for more.

The final matchworn shirt we’ll cover this time round is a 2018/19 Jarrod Bowen home shirt. The listing was vague and didn’t confirm that this shirt was player specification. It has the Burflex sponsor patch heat applied to the back which would imply that this is indeed what the 7 Bidders thought. Did the seller not know what they had? Or was it a deliberate ploy to lull bidders into thinking they might get something good on the cheap? Who knows, but the final sales price was £291. A huge win for the seller here.

Onto replicas and this 1986-88 home shirt by Admiral in size small sold for £105 after a couple of bids. Even though the shirt is sized small it is in a very good condition and that will have aided the sale.

We don’t know the true value of this 1993/94 home shirt by Pelada in a size medium unfortunately as it was listed with the best offer feature. The initial listing started at £200 but we’ve seen these have sold for double that in the time we have been covering sales for Auction Action.

We have seen this 1997/98 home shirt by Super League before, and only as far back as November. There was a reason that it was easy to pick out, and that is the hole under the sponsor, which is identical on both. It sold in November very quickly, as we pointed out back then for just £24.99, but this time it was listed as an auction with it finishing up at £62. That is an increase of 148%.

Staying in 1997/98, this away shirt in XL sold for £76.01. A good price for the buyer to pay, since the last one that we covered was sold in June 2022 for £119.99 (XXL).

We fielded quite a few queries via Twitter DMs about the legitimacy of this next item, a 2015/16 home shirt with play-off game detail. Was it a spare player shirt left name and numberless in case of injury and the drafting in of a youth teamer to make up the numbers? No. There are a few things that might imply it was that, such as the Hudgell Solicitors sponsor applied to be back of the shirt, also the play-off sleeve patch, which didn’t have the ‘A Football League event’ text associated with commercially available versions. The kicker though was the game detail text on the front of the shirt… a pretty good approximation of the real thing, but the typeface isn’t quite right. The real deal features very slender letters, and these are just a bit too thick. The biggest mistake of the auction however is calling us ‘Hill City’, which sounds like one of the zones on Sonic The Hedgehog. £67.00 was the final sale price, three bidders attempted to win the shirt.

Finally, since the demand for the 2022/23 third shirt has been met, long gone are the silly prices that came with its original release in 2021. This blackout shirt 2.0 in size 2XL finished at £22.33.

That’s all for January’s listings, come back next month to see what auction action took place in February, and don’t forget… caveat emptor!