Original rules of basketball to be auctioned off
When James Naismith was a 30-year-old physical education instructor at a local YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891, his boss asked him to come up with a set of rules for a new indoor
activity for his class.
The list of 13 rules that Naismith scribbled down represent the origins of the game of basketball, one of the most widely-played sports in the world today. Now the historic rules are going
to be auctioned off by his grandson and are expected to fetch a tidy sum.
On Friday 10 December, the original copy of the rules Naismith drew up almost 120 years ago will go to auction at Southeby’s in New York City, and are expected to be sold for upwards of
$2 million, all of which will go towards the Naismith International Basketball Foundation, which provides assistance to underprivileged children around the world.
James’ grandson Ian Naismith, who founded the foundation, said it was a family decision to part ways with the historic document.
“We need to take the money and work the money back into kids,” Ian told The Associated Press. “We call it recycling. With the economy going south the last couple of years, my stroke, my
wife passing away, it was more important to me to have the game go back into the kids. It’s what Dr. Naismith wanted.”
The inventor of basketball died in 1939, three years after the sport he invented became an official event at the Summer Olympics in Berlin.
“It’s really the genesis, the birth certificate of one of the world’s most popular sports,” said Selby Kiffer, senior specialist in American history documents for Southeby’s. “It’s a sport
that has had an impact on everything from fashion, such as sneakers, to culture that in a way transcends sports.”
Kiffer said given the uniqueness of the item, he really has no idea how much it will fetch but he admitted it could be more than $2 million.
“The estimate is unusual for us, giving a single-figure estimate,” he said. “Normally we have a high and a low. This is something so unusual that I don’t think we know what the upper end
might be.”
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