Well here's my latest bit of treasure I gleaned off of eBay..............
I was looking through the bronze subset of the Collectables - Metalware category, and ran across this incredible trophy. The description read:
1939 BRONZE, INTERCLUB CHALLENGE WON BY SO. SHORE Y.C.
It was listed in an obscure category and made no reference to anything that had to do with what it actually was......... no yacht, boat, trophy, etc. in the description. I ended up with the only bid and basically bought it for the price of the shipping.
The trophy is from the Southern Shore Yacht Club, and a little research on the internet lead me to the Southern Shore Yacht Club of Chicago, on Lake Michigan. Here is a little history quote on the club from the club's history page:
"In 1912, eleven powerboat sailors ("stinkpotters"), finding little support from the sailing club in the outer harbor, organized a South Shore Power Boat Club (Changed to it's present name in 1930)"
The original clubhouse was actually a floating houseboat, but it later burned in 1934. The new clubhouse was built in the Cape Cod style and the yacht club is now one of the very exclusive yacht clubs in Chicago!
The trophy is made of bronze and the medallion features a power boat, very rare for this time period! All of the engraved letters were engraved by hand. The woman who sold me the trophy said that she had purchased a box of old trophies and plaques at a flea market, for her husband. He was going to remove the awards and use the wood plaques to mount arrowheads on. She said that this one was too beautiful to toss, so she kept it and put it on eBay......... I can only wonder what else was in the box..... She lives just outside of Chicago.
The cool thing about this is that it is a perfect match to all of the old 1930's and 1940's Great Lakes charts that I scored earlier in the month!
I'm sure that this piece is valuable, how valuable is yet to be determined, but in any case, it is a wonderful piece of early yachting history saved!
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