A fascinating item associated with one of the most notorious occurrences in English football history being a letter dated 13th September 1895 on Aston

A fascinating item associated with one of the most notorious occurrences in English football history being a letter dated 13th September 1895 on Aston Villa headed paper signed by William Shillcock and relating to a reward to be offered for the recovery of the F.A. Cup Trophy that had been stolen from Shillcock's Birmingham premises where it had been on display, the manuscript letter in ink reading: DEAR SIR, YOUR CLUB HAVE MY FULL CONSENT & PERMISSION TO OFFER ANY REWARD NOT EXCEEDING (?50) FIFTY POUNDS OR TO TAKE ANY STEPS YOU MAY DEEM NECESSARY FOR THE RECOVERY OF THE ENGLISH CUP. I AGREE THAT SUCH ACTIONS SHALL NOT RELIEVE ME OF MY RESPONSIBILITIES INCURRED IN MY EXISITING GUARANTEE FOR SAFETY AND RETURN OF THE ENGLISH CUP. W. SHILLCOCK. the handwriting is not that of Shillcock and appears to have been composed and written by the Aston Villa Club Secretary George Ramsay, with Shillcock then adding his signature; sold together with a framed Sunday Pictorial newspaper dated 23rd February 1958 with a front page story claiming to have solved the riddle of theft of the F.A. Cup trophy in 1895 with an 83-year-old man Harry Burge confessing to crime, but was this 1950s-style 'Fake News' !; the lot also including a small picture of William Shillcock's Birmingham shop; a postcard of the Aston Villa 1895 team posing with the Cup before the later theft; and a miniature reproduction of the ?10 reward poster (5) Shillcock ran a sporting outfitters business from premises at 73 Newton Row, Birmingham. Aston Villa were the reigning F.A. Cup champions having beaten West Bromwich Albion 1-0 at the Crystal Palace 20th April 1895. Villa agreed to loan the trophy to Shillcock for display in his shop window. The 'Little Tin Idol' as it was known was then sensationally stolen on 11th September 1895, two days before the date of the present letter. Interestingly when the reward was put up it was advertised as a more modest ?10, not the ?50 maximum as Shillcock had agreed to. The original trophy was never recovered and its whereabouts, if it was not placed in the melting pot for the scrap value, remains a mystery. There was a confession to the theft made by an 83-year-old-man through a Sunday newspaper in 1958, but it is widely believed that his motivation for this was a fee to the paper. The original F.A. Cup Trophy was made by Martin, Hall & Co. in 1872 at a cost of ?20. The cup stood 18in. tall and was competed for between 1872 and 1895. An exact replica was made as a replacement after the theft and this was used until 1910. It was then de-commissioned and presented to the Football Association's long standing President Lord Kinnaird as a retirement present. That trophy was later sold at Christie's auctioneers for ?478,000 and was purchased by the present day West Ham United chairman David Gold who has it on loan at the National Football Museum in Manchester. In 1911 a new trophy design was chosen and is the one familiar to all football fans today, made by Fattorini and Sons. Two versions have replaced the 1911 Cup for preservation purposes, the first played for in 1992 and the current version used for the first time in 2014. Provenance: The George Ramsay Collection sold at Christie's Glasgow 20th June 1998.