*Updated below.

This club is old. Don’t let its shallow, short blade fool you. It’s an approximately 200-year-old cleek, or approach putter, of considerable historical importance and rarity. It has a 4 3/4" hosel that is exceedingly thick across its entire length with exceptionally prominent nicking. In addition, there is a crease between the end of the blade and the side of the hosel. This is a feature developed and used during the feather ball era and, even then, found on relatively few clubs. 

In one image, this 1825 cleek is shown next to a c1875 John Gray cleek.  There is no mistaking one for the other.  Both have the same length hosel, but the early cleek has a much bigger head in both the thickness of the hosel and the thickness of the blade.  In addition, it uses a much thicker shaft.  This huge difference in size speaks to the great age difference between the two clubs.    

Rarely seen, early cleeks made prior to 1850 are usually brutish things, with fat hosels and exceptionally thick blades. An account of a cleek published in 1842 notes that cleeks back then were made with a thick strip of smooth iron set at about 45 degrees (which matches this iron) and were useful for "tilting a ball out of a rough place near the hole." (See TCA2 v1 p120). Some have called these clubs "approach putters," as the golfer would use this club when playing from a tough lie near the hole.

The earliest cleeks made during the first half of the nineteenth century were specialty clubs and few golfers used them. They were not the progenitors of the cleeks made in the second half of the nineteenth century (such as the John Gray cleek also shown). Those slim and sleek, elegant irons with much longer shafts were a descendant of the light iron. They inherited the "cleek" name when the iron approach putters tried before 1850 disappeared. Early cleeks/approach putters—like this one—were thick all over and had a short shaft. They were made heavy not only to handle heavy grass but also so a short stroke near the hole would produce a solid shot. These first cleeks were descendants of the earliest iron putters which are even older.  It is only on these oldest iron putters and approach putters that you will find the vertical crease on the end of the blade next to the hosel. 

The exceedingly thick shaft in this club is a modern replacement made from ash. The sueded leather grip is also a replacement. Wood shafts could break, but the golfer could simply reshaft the head and be back in business. Consequently, irons were given to use across long periods of time and were subject to eventually suffering a broken shaft.

This head itself was forged from wrought iron. Both feather ball and early gutty ball period irons were made from wrought iron which, unlike carbon steel, has a fibrous grain created by slag/impurities in the iron. This fine grain will often be visible where it runs horizontally across the front and back of the blade, as it clearly is on this club. Because the quality of wrought iron improved as time moved towards the end of the nineteenth century the impurities in the iron became less and less, so the grain became less and less prominent. Of course, there were variances from one smelting operation to the next as well, and that could affect the amount of slag in the iron.

Most early cleeks look a little rougher than this club. This one, however, is exceptionally well made, the product of a highly skilled blacksmith.

*Update: As a testament to its rarity and place in early golf during the feather-ball-era, this iron sold for $10,700 on April 20, 2007, as lot 1024 in a Bonhams auction in Brookline, Massachusetts. It achieved that price after being miscataloged as an 1860 lofting iron with an estimate of $1500-$2500.

The John Gray cleek shown for perspective in the images is not part of this lot.  From the World Golf Hall of Fame collection, it is offered as a separate lot in this sale.