Replica FA Cup sells for £3,300 at Staffordshire auction
A rare replica of the iconic FA Cup has sold at a Staffordshire auction for thousands of pounds – just days before Chelsea and Leicester City play the 2021 final.
It went under the hammer with Richard Winterton Auctioneers live from the Lichfield Auction Centre on Monday – eventually selling way above estimate to a telephone bidder for £3,300.
The 66cm tall silver lustred likeness is actually crafted from ceramic with a platinum glaze and comes in three parts – the cup itself, the lid and base – just like the real thing; and the internal glaze is coloured bronze to resemble Champagne stains left by decades of victories.
Auctioneer Richard Winterton said: "The replica was uncanny – undoubtedly a real goal for any football fan."
In 1979, after lengthy negotiations, Portmeirion Pottery was given permission by FA secretary Ted Croker to produce limited edition scale replicas and the cup was inspected at Highbury, as Arsenal held the trophy at the time.
Portmeirion invested 100 hours of modelling to reproduce the trophy commemorating the 1980 FA Cup Final between West Ham United and Arsenal, won 1-0 by West Ham at Wembley on May 10 – coincidentally the same date the replica went under the hammer.
But high production costs proved prohibitive and the replica never went into full commercial production.
Mr Winterton added: “We had a huge amount of interest and its appeal to collectors is furthered still as no-one can really be sure how many of these reproductions are in existence.
“This particular replica is numbered 19 of 500 but it’s actually estimated that fewer than 200 were produced before the project was dropped in 1980.”
