Sold at £6000 in a recent Scottish sale was an early golfing item. The 1839 edition of Rules of the Game of Golf adopted by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers shown right was still in the original wrappers and bore an 1852 ownership inscription of one Henry Wells.
Part of a February 14 sale held by Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium), to which I will return next week, it was something that I could find no record of at auction, or in the small collection of sale catalogues of major golf literature collections on my own reference shelves.
The rules of golf were first drawn up in 1744 for an ‘Open’ competition held in Leith by the Gentleman Golfers of Edinburgh, later known as the Honourable Company.