At the recent pledge night in aid of the Faxbuilder we were given an item to sell/auction to raise money for the fund and wondered if anyone knew how much it may be worth.
It is a souvineer book that was printed in 1923 to commemerate the Clubs Jubilee
It looks to have been sponsored by Lister Horsfall Ltd as their advert is all around the front cover with picture of Thum Hall on the front.
It makes interesting reading inc` copy of first advert placed in Courier.
"Persons desirous of joining a football and athletic club are requested to meet on Thursday next , Nov 6th @ 8-30pm ,at the Upper George Hotel.

It says the first meeting had to be adjourned as only 6 people turned up however the rearanged one gained an extra 2 people and a club was born.
It says they decided the Clubs colours were to be Red and Black but the makers did not have the required amount in stock so they switched to Blue and White and even they did not arrive on time so at the first match the players played in their ordinary clothes against Leeds which left their clothes in tatters.
It also tells of a game against Bradford where the attendance was 19,978 with gate receipts of a massive record take of £521 11s 9d.
The book comes with a gold braided Halifax Supporters cloth badge and a cutting from the Courier about the owner of the book which was Frank Williams former player and sports editor of the Halifax Courier.
The book was donated by Mick and Daryl of the Westgate Pub Halifax. Thanks go to them.

No idea as to the value of it, but would there be any way of reproducing it, either in full or in parts, Id be interested to see it as would others I am sure,

No idea on the price, but in the history of Halifax RLFC its priceless, but like Brew it would be good to take a look at it. Maybe a reproduction would be a good idea.

The market for sports history/memorabilia has been static in the last 12 months with prices not moving up much which tends to reflect the general economic climate. There is also a “hierarchy” of sports, as you would expect sports with a world-wide appeal, and wealthy participants, tend to have more collectors and thus force up prices for rarer goods. Hence Golf items tend to be the highest prices, followed by sailing, and motor sport, albeit the exception to this rule is that cricket items are also highly prized despite the limited geography of participants.

Of the two codes of Rugby, demand/prices tend to be considerably higher for Union goods. It has a slightly wider international following, tends to have more “rare” items and – without sounding political – tends to have support amongst wealthier potential bidders. Highets prices are actually paid for items from pre-split days and medals/international caps from before WW1
The demand for league items is considerably less, so prices are lower. Pre WW2 Cup final medals reach around £800-£1000, a very early cup final programme reached £1000 and at an auction last weekend a Hull 1908 Cup runners up medal reached £500. Other 1920’s/1930’s club histories have been sold at auction for £100-£300. So this would need to be your starting point in looking at the “true” value. The other issue is there are not a lot of collectors of Halifax memorabilia so there is unlikely to be a bidding war.

However, these are prices that would be reached in a sporting auction. If the item was auctioned at a Halifax event then someone might get carried away and bid above the “true” value.

Dependent which route you take the safest way to sell it will be with a reserve, just like on “cash in the attic”!

Hope this helps

H

Thank you Howard for your advice and following on from other comments I wonder if we could take some of the stories and get a printer to produce a small copy and sell them in aid of Faxbuilder?

I think that would be a really good idea.

You could always put together a small booklet and sell it, plus perhaps a few adverts, to raise funds. Just need to be careful on the costs as small runs (unless you can find a surporter who prints and will not charge) can be relatively expensive as it would need to look the part. I would certainly buy one (at the right function and with the amount of beer I might even bid for the book!)

One small point the book will be copywrite protected, if the book has no author that will be 70 years after it was published (so you will be okay with a 1923 book), if any article/section has a "by line" it will be 70 years after the death of the author - shouldn't be a problem but worth being 100% safe!
H

As this book was published in 1923 it would be covered by the Copyright Act 1911. Which states that a copyright shall last for authors life plus 50 years. Authors life plus 70 years was implemented under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and was not retrospective.

Should the book still remain within copyright, you can freely reproduce the material without consent inside the final 25 years of copyright if you pay a 10% royalty fee.

So if 10% was set aside just incase anyone came forward with a claim, it'd be a go-er then?

Quite possibly. Not being a person of law, I couldn't really give you a definitive answer on that. However it would be a reasonable argument had 10% been put aside for the copyright holder as specified within the 1911 Act.

I used a copy of this book, along with lots of other source material, when I wrote the club history "The Thrum Hall Story" in 1986. All the stories it tells are in there. Still a valuable book because of its age - best place to auction it might be through the Rugby League Collectors Federation, who have an auction at all the Rugby League Collectors Fairs. Too late for the one at Odsal on January 2, but there'll probably be one at Halifax early next season.