So my new job means I go for a road trip to some corner of England once a month. This week I managed to pick up a couple of vintage bats on my travels. Not knowing much about old bats I would welcome opinions/info on what I picked up.
First up is this - advert was for a cover which apparently came with an old bat....
You can never have too many covers so I agreed to buy it and take a chance on the bat - and this is what was inside when I picked it up.
I have taken the tape and twine off to find the face wasn't too bad, but there have been some repairs to the toe that could do with a tidy up.
It is SH, weighs 2.8 and has 8 grains - taps up pretty well with a ball. As the face is already 2 different colours I plan to give it a light refurb/repair.
The second bat is this Stuart Surridge Neil Harvey Autograph 2 star which I believe dates from mid 1950s, as Surridge sponsored Harvey after he scored over 2000 runs in the 1953 Ashes tour of England. This was found in the sellers loft so they couldn't tell me much about it, and I can't find much info on line other than some notes on the Bonhams website when then sold a signed SS NH from the 1956 Ashes tour - their write up suggested the Aussie team commissioned some of these bats
The willow is in great shape for its age, and although I would like to clean it up think I should leave this one alone as it will either damage the branding or end up with a 2 tone face if I stay well clear of the writing.
One question - it doesn't have any markings to to suggest it was not an adult bat, but it only measures 32.75 inches long and weighs just 2.4lbs - so is this likely to be a Harrow or just a small men's - did they tend to use smaller bats back then?