Details
A presentation real tennis prize racket, manufactured by Brouaye, France, with tilted head, original coarse gut two-tone strings, lop-sided red morocco convex wedge decorated in gilt and dated "1862", braided silver throat collar and embossed silver butt cap, square handle with contemporary pink velvet cloth grip (grip faded, strings distressed), preserved in a contemporary purpose-built glass-fronted display case.
The strings are individually tied at each intersection, a stringing technique used until about 1870. The racket predates the first lawn tennis rackets by about 15 years. This particular racket was presented to B. M. Davies who, as an Oxford undergraduate in 1862, won the inter-undergraduate senior Tennis competition (Marshall The Annals of Tennis 1878, p. 110).
See front cover illustration.
The strings are individually tied at each intersection, a stringing technique used until about 1870. The racket predates the first lawn tennis rackets by about 15 years. This particular racket was presented to B. M. Davies who, as an Oxford undergraduate in 1862, won the inter-undergraduate senior Tennis competition (Marshall The Annals of Tennis 1878, p. 110).
See front cover illustration.
Provenance
Formerly the property of the Australian tennis player, Lewis Alan "Lew" Hoad (1934-1994), winner of the Gentlemen's Singles at Wimbledon in 1956 and 1957, and offered for sale on the instruction of his widow, Mrs Jennifer Hoad.