Lot # 379: Spalding Gold Medal Driver & Brassie w/ Ivory Face Inserts

Category: Vintage Golf Clubs

Starting Bid: $75.00

Bids: 9 (Bid History)

Time Left: Auction closed

Lot / Auction Closed




This lot is closed. Bidding is not allowed.

Item was in Auction "2025 Golf Antiques - Hosted by Jeff Ellis",
which ran from 2/13/2025 5:00 PM to
2/23/2025 9:00 PM



1916 Spalding Gold Medal Ivory Face Driver and Brassie.  These clubs have their original shafts and grips (both are 44").  Their thick mamajama ivory inserts are also original.  

In 1909, Spalding began offering ivory inserts as an expensive—$2 per insert—upgrade to their standard inserts.  They were available by special order only.  In 1916, Spalding Golf Medal GM1 drivers and brassies came standard with ivory inserts, but the clubs were more expensive than others.  Ivory was considered a premium insert material and remained on the market for a number of years, but whether because it made the ball go farther or just looked fancy is subject to debate.  Whatever it was, golf clubs that used ivory remained on the market (more or less) until the 1930s.

A commentary about ivory inserts, printed in the March 1913 issue of The American Golfer, wrestles with that answer:

"Now that so many players have begun to use a driver with a piece of ivory set in the face, the question naturally arises what is the advantage of it. Ask any player who uses one and he will immediately tell you he can get considerably more distance with it than with the wooden driver. Yet is this a fact? Undoubtedly when the ball is hit with the center of the ivory face the result will be a long ball, but isn't it true that when we happen to get hold of one in the center of the ivory that we attribute the corking good drive to the ivory instead of to the fact that the ball has been hit in the middle of the club? We think it is; but it is a difference of opinion which makes people like different clubs (448)."