Getting Shirty: Umbro examines the world of rare football shirts
“Hi guys, I have a limited edition Umbro England World Cup 1966 shirt in a gold case, only 1966 were made, and I was wondering how much would that be worth nowadays?”
The above enquiry was posted on the Umbro blog recently, so we set intrepid writer and football shirt nut Jeff Maysh the task of finding out. Here’s how he got on…
‘Dear Steve, even we can’t find a record of the item you write about, and because we aren’t the Antiques Roadshow, we’ve consulted a raft of experts to find out how much it could be worth, uncovering skip-loads of geeky facts and stories along the way.
“There is still an incredible demand for 1966 items,” explains top auctioneer David Convery, formerly head of Sporting Memorabilia at Christie’s. “The programmes, tickets, and World Cup Willie items are readily available at prices of between £30-200, but the big money is in player’s worn items.”
So if your shirt was worn by one of the World Cup winners during the final, the sweat and mud and tears of joy will add literally thousands of pounds onto the value. Umbro sifted through decades of sales catalogues and found that Geoff Hurst’s famous red shirt broke a world record when it sold for £91,750 (pictured, top), and even George Cohen’s shirt sold for £38,000 (above). Martin Peters gave his spare shirt to England coach driver Sid Brown, before it sold for £8,640 in 2006 (below). However, the most incredible story is of Nobby Stiles’ jersey. He gave it to Alan Ball, whose father swapped it for a colour television at an electronics shop in Bolton! It was later sold to a collector for just £115, in a deal at the glamorous Holiday Inn, Bristol.
Which brings us closer to the value of your shirt, Steve. “This sounds to me like it could be a limited edition of replicas released by Umbro in 2006 to celebrate 40 years since the victory,” says Simon Shakeshaft, memorabilia expert at footballmatchshirts.co.uk. “While nearly 2,000 shirts is by no means a ‘limited’ edition, and it isn’t autographed, you could expect up to £100 for your shirt.” Auctioneer David Convery concurs, saying he’d put an estimate of £100-200 on the item. But chin up, Steve, Umbro would like to offer a swap… for one colour telly?’
If you’ve any more shirt-related questions you’d like answered, you can contact Jeff here on the Umbro blog or by sending him a message on Twitter
On 7 Jan 2010, at 6:49 am Steve wrote:
Thanks for getting back with so much information on the the shirt, maybe I do need a new telly soon. hehe
On 5 Apr 2010, at 3:19 pm Umbro.com Blogs « Mud. Sweat. Badges. wrote:
[...] 1. Getting Shirty: Umbro examines the world of rare football shirts “Hi guys, I have a limited edition Umbro England World Cup 1966 shirt in a gold case, only 1966 were made, and I was wondering how much would that be worth nowadays?” The above enquiry was posted on the Umbro blog recently, so we set intrepid writer and football shirt nut Jeff Maysh [...] 2.Getting Shirty: the story behind Beckham’s kit As we mentioned earlier, Loaded’s Jeff Maysh is joining the blog team here at Umbro to give the inside track on all the world of football shirts. Jeff’s a big collector of shirts, and knows his football – despite being a Spurs fan. Here’s his blog for us, where he looks at the detail that [...] 3. England Shirt…Tailored By The Mighty Boosh Here’s an England shirt as you’ll never have seen it before…designed by Julian Barrett and Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh. It was passed on to us by Jeff Maysh over at Loaded magazine, who’s going to be writing some blogs for us, starting later today. The Boosh designed the shirt for a Loaded charity [...] [...]