Beschreibung:

[Golf] — Clapcott, C[harles]. B[lackstone].A set of his privately issued works related to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers
Lot includes: The Early Days of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (1744 to 1764). Some Facts and Conclusions Relative Thereto. C. B. C. April 1938 (binding title). [Chelsea?, 1938]. 58 offset-duplicated typescript pages paginated 1–58, with several manuscript corrections and revisions, likely in Clapcott's hand, and 11 typescript or blank cancel slips pasted over the text or on blank versos. Original green-cloth-backed stiff green wrappers with title offset-duplicated to front wrapper. — The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers on Leith Links (1764 to 1796). C. B. C. January 1939 (binding title). [Chelsea?, 1939]. 124 offset-duplicated typescript pages paginated 1–124. Original blue cloth, front cover with offset-duplicated title label, yellow endpapers. — The Match Dinners of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, 1744 -- 1932. C. B. C. January 1940. [Chelsea?, 1940]. 55 offset-duplicated typescript pages, including title-page, table of contents, text paginated 1–52, and list of recorders of the Company. Signed on the title page "R.M. McClaren | Recorder | Honourable Club of Edinburgh Golfers," in pencil, and with his often extensive penciled annotations and commentary throughout. Original stiff brown wrappers with title offset-duplicated to front wrapper, sewn with string through three punched holes. — Modern photocopied facsimiles of four golfing papers by Clapcott, comprising The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers on Leith Links (1764 to 1796); The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers Last Days on Leith Links (1796 – 1836); The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers on Musselburgh Links (1836 to 1891); Some Comments on the Articles and Laws in Playing the Golf: Being the First Set of Rules of the Honourable Company of Date 1744. Each bound in plastic wrappers. — Autograph letter signed by Clapcott ("CB Clapcott"), 1 1/2 pages on a sheet of paper headed in holograph "Bailey's Hotel. Gloucester Road. S.W.7," undated, to one Lombe, sending copies of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Its Titles in the Past (1744 – 1948) [not present], and asking him to replace with these the old copies in "the Record box and … [on] the table in the big room of the Club House." Clapcott also corrects some bibliographical errors of B. Darwin and asks that a copy of the brochure of the Club's history be sent to him when printed since "I am not coming to Muirfield this summer. I am getting too old and I hate crowds."
7 volumes folio (each ca. 332 x 202 mm) and one autograph letter (330 x 205 mm). Binding of Early Days faded and a bit worn at extremities, binding of Leith Links very lightly rubbed at extremities, binding of Match Dinners quite worn, string-tie broken.
(Sold as a group — not subject to return.)
Charles Blackstone Clapcott (1867–1955) was a barrister, colonial judge, local politician—and golf historian. His monumental, multi-part history of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, whose home course is Muirfield, circulated, in very small numbers, in the present pre-publication form until compiled and edited by Alastair Johnston in 1985 as The Clapcott Papers. Clapcott's personal library was the basis for Cecil Hopkinson's Collecting Golf-Books 1743–1938 (see lot ??).
PROVENANCE:PBA Galleries, 13 April 2017 (Rare Golf Books & Memorabilia), lots 61, 62 (part), 63, 65; PBA Galleries, 12 November 2017 (Fine Golf Books, Hickory Clubs & Golf Memorabilia), lot 50